This morning I found myself up well before dawn,

 reflecting, in the quiet moment, on this year so nearly gone.

 Due to unforeseen circumstances, I’ve been forced to scale back and slow down.  That was NOT in my business plan!

Sometimes, we get what we need, rather than what we think  we want.   I am grateful for the gifts I’ve been given and humbled by the beauty in my world. 

My old love gave found a way around my hearing impairment and gave me the gift of music for my birthday. I’ve missed the music more than I realized. 

I’ve actually enjoyed my family, rather than just fitting them in. 

I’ve discovered photography, thanks to the advent of digital cameras for idiots. 

I’ve felt the spray of waves on my face.

I’ve found serenity in the sea.

I met a new buddy in the rain.

I have found a path to an inner peace that I never thought possible.

And tremendously important, I have found all of you here at Blogstream! May your holidays and the coming year bring you love and peace.

  Thank you all for being here.

                      Love and best wishes…Bupu

I suffer from chronic monkey mind on my best day.  And I’ve never had even a hint of a sense of direction.  I can get lost anytime, anywhere.  This time I got lost in the kitchen and didn’t bubble up to the surface for four days.   Why?  I don’t know. Blame it on the rain. 

I remember having the bright idea to make cookies to take to some people at work.  Keep in mind that I do not have an oven, only a convection microwave.   Undaunted,  I whipped up 9 dozen assorted cookies—and none of them Christmas cookies.  Then I decided to make a little lunch—fried chicken, Japanese potato salad with radishes and cucumber, corn on the cob. 

And then I had to get dinner started—beef stew and homemade bread.  Of course dinner needed dessert—gingerbread with homemade pear preserves.  (I don’t can, so I only made one jar.)  I remembered that my father was jonesing for peanut brittle, so I made 3 pounds of that. 

By that time I was inspired.  I found a recipe for homemade peppermint marshmallows for hubby’s late night hot chocolate, and one of my mother’s mystery recipes which turned out to be ginger snaps.  My step-daughter phoned and asked me to send her some fudge.  I made 5 pounds while I was going that way. 

I got a few hours’ nap, blew off work,  and started all over the next morning with buttermilk biscuits and country gravy, taco salad, churros, cream puffs…..  This is where I lost track of time and any pretext of sanity.  I can’t even remember what  made after that.  It didn’t matter.  I was in the moment.

You’d think the caring souls that share my domain would have done some sort of intervention.  Oh, helllllll no!  They just bellied up to the breakfast bar and egged me on—like when the distraught person is on the roof and the crowd below is chanting “Jump! Jump!”  Worse still, every one of them can eat like a black hole without gaining a single ounce, except the dog, who is now comatose.  Hubby is widening the doggy door as we speak.

I finally stopped cooking late Sunday night—only because there was simply no place left to put anything and I had run out of sugar.  I still have to body slam the refrigerator to get the door to close.  It’s taken me three days to catch up on my workload, but everyone is happily munching and asking when I’m making the Christmas goodies.

Guess what gift I got in the mail today?   The 40^th anniversary edition of Julia Childe’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, 648 pages of  exquisite culinary compulsion.  I’m happy as a pig in a wallow. 

There’s just one other thing that I really want for Christmas …

                                                                                                            LYPOSUCTION!

 WISHING ALL OF YOU SAFE AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

Maybe I’m just simple-minded, but it really is the corny, cliché stuff that gives me the warm fuzzies. 

We took a little ride up the coast last weekend, stuck our toes in the sand and shared a thermos of hot clam chowder and some crabcakes warmed on a rock by an open fire.  That might not work for Suzanne, who  phoned me yesterday from cruiseship poolside on her way to Cabo.  But I thought it was romantic, and I doubt Suzanne’s sunset was more serene.

Not to say that “money can’t buy happiness.”  I wouldn't know.  But I do know that If I wait until I get enough money to be happy, it’s never going to happen.  It’s not a fancy home or flashy car or designer suits I once coveted that excite me now.  It’s going for a walk in the rain…

Reflections in our river at flood tide…

My favorite fishing hole...

Or  just sunlight in the sycamores.

These are the memories I will share with my grandchildren.

Best of all, I have an old dog to walk with me, and an old love to come home to. 

Bon Voyage, Suzanne.  Enjoy!