Sorry I haven’t updated in a while (Wes!). Life has been pretty normal, without any huge triumphs or crises to report. The water’s back on, which is a very big plus.

Yesterday the yard was absolutely seething with robins. I guess they don’t realize it’s January. We should mow a calendar into the grass for them…

This morning, Ben surprised me by announcing that he got the day off! I woke up at 6:47 and panicked, because I knew he was scheduled to be in at 6:00, but all was well. He had to go to Atlanta for a meeting on Tuesday, when he should have been off, so he got to stay home today instead. And then he took me bowling, which was SO much fun. I don’t think I’ve bowled since 7th grade, and I’m really bad, but we laughed so hard! And then I cleaned out the aquarium, and now we’re about to go find some new fish. I’ve given all mine to Mom and Dad over the past few weeks, and I think we’re going to go with a slightly more aggressive tank.

Let’s see, what else is new… last Saturday, Ben took me to see the Lipizzaner stallions at the BiLo Center in Greenville. He got the tickets for me for Christmas, and the seats were amazing! The bottom deck was open for seating, but they had two rows of seats on the floor itself surrounding the performance area. We were right in the middle of that first row, straight ahead of the red carpet, and when the horses came around the ring, they were about 6 feet away from us! Anyway, it was wonderful. I saw them once when I was a lot younger, but I didn’t really appreciate the intricacy of what they were doing back then. This time, I sat there with tears in my eyes just from the beauty of the horses and the amazing communication between horse and rider.

That’s about all I can think of that’s worth sharing at the moment. Now if only other people would take the time to let their friends know what they’re up to… I think you know who you are.

Wow. This has really been a week to remember. Or, preferably, to forget. Let’s see — to start, our kitchen/downstairs has flooded twice due to torrential downpours, and we’ve woken up to a half-inch of standing water and some very squishy floor tiles. A dehumidifier zaps it up pretty quickly, but the rug and the furniture don’t appreciate the bath.

Last weekend, some people came to look at the BMW that we’re trying to sell, and while it had been fine the night before (except for a funny noise that turned out to be nothing more than a loose pulley in the AC belt), wouldn’t you know that when they took it out for a test drive, it started overheating and spewing coolant everywhere! Still, they thought they wanted the car, so we took it this week for our mechanic to check out, and he found that the radiator is cracked and has to be replaced, along with a bunch of other normal “wear and tear” type things for a car with 100,000 miles on it. So we’re having a new radiator installed, and then we still have to negotiate with the buyer. We actually have it priced about right if you do the math as far as its value in peak condition versus the total amount of work it needs, but I doubt he’s going to see it that way!

And then, to top it all off, yesterday morning, we had a frozen pipe outside that burst, and it looked like an easy repair — just replacing a fitting on a hose fixture at the side of our house. But it proved impossible to loosen the damaged piece, and in the effort, another pipe ended up breaking underground. And that one just happened to be the only supply line from the spring for our house. So now we have no water. Hopefully Ben and Dad can get it fixed tomorrow.

Anyway, I’m not complaining, because things could be a lot worse. The flood could have been 2 feet deep. The car could have needed a new clutch and transmission in addition to the radiator. And we could have been without electricity and water for the next week like during last winter’s big ice storm. I’m grateful we’ve been spared from all of that. And I know someday these will all be fond memories we can share a good chuckle over. But for now, what a week!

January. And it’s finally starting to feel like it. I took Stella outside a minute ago, and the morning is nearly perfect. The sun is starting to peek into our little valley, there’s a mist on the pasture, and the moon is just visible through the trees beyond my parents’ house, full and still pale yellow. I love my camera and fancy myself an amateur photographer, but there’s just no way to capture the crystal clear perfection of a moment like that.

Despite the cold outside, my angelfish have decided it’s time to start a family. A week ago, a leaf of one of the aquarium plants was coated with little clear eggs, and now there are teensy fish swimming everywhere. They look like tiny, transparent tadpoles with bright, silvery eyes. Since this is the first batch, it’s been a bit of an experiment. Next time, I think I’ll remove the eggs and raise the fry (isn’t that a morbid term for baby fish?) separately. I’m hoping I can get a higher survival rate that way.

Watching the parents care for them has been amazing, though. For a while they kept all the kids herded together, and if one wandered off, mom or dad would catch the prodigal carefully in their mouth and spit it back out among its siblings. Sometimes they’d collect 5 or 10 at a time, and then they’d spew out this little cloud of baby fish, who would float there, stunned, for a second and then immediately make another escape attempt. It’s hours of quality entertainment, really.

As soon as I get my new computer online, I intend to post more regularly here. Our old laptop (old! We just bought it in June!) has a problem with the video card and shuts down frequently and without warning. I actually had to let myself into my parents’ house (they’re at the beach, and it’s really cold in here!) and use their computer to finish this post, because ours flashed the blue death mask of Calcutta at me 8 times in 30 minutes and now refuses to respond at all.

Anyway, all that to say that I should soon be writing more than once a week. Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise, of course.