Back at Last!

If anyone out there is still reading...thank you for not deserting. We all love technology; most of us couldn't manage without it. That's the reason when two things happen simultaneously, life gets pretty discouraging. I did a seemingly simple weeks ago: I changed my e-mail address.

The first thing that happened was that the technology didn't work. Instantly I lost access to my blog--not to read it, but to edit or add to it.

The second thing that went wrong was that there is NO way to get a direct answer to a direct question. It has taken all these weeks of daily striving to get back to where I am. Today I discovered that I didn't (couldn't) change the e-mail address associated with the blog. Amazing! And after all the evil things I've had to say about my erstwhile server, I'm having to take some of them back. They continue to save messages going to my discontinued account on their webmail site! Otherwise I'd have lost 5 years' worth of nonsense that I didn't want to lose.

I'm humbled (yet again--it seems to be a given as one gets older). So now I have to think of something to say, I guess...so, Hello again.

Maybe there's a hidden message in the fact that I finally got back after the conventions (still more or less in one piece) on an important day: my late beloved husband's birthday. [What possible message could be in that coincidence?]

This is a busy month with some worrying freight for me. Possibly a decision to make a pretty drastic change. Have you ever thought of how you'd manage cooking if you had perhaps 10% of your accustomed utensils and cookware? All suggestions would be greatly appreciated! One must be encouraged, I guess, if one is looking forward, even if it is unto the unknown!

Still Learning

Lesson for today:

There certainly isn't anything like a new location to give a new slant. We were expecting to be here in Connecticut by today, but not (as it turned out we were) by yesterday. The storm warnings impressed even my intrepid daughter, so we rescheduled everything and took off a day early from North Carolina. Since the route goes via I-77 and I-81, we're mighty glad we did! So here I sit in a busy household where my son-in-law is baking cookies like three of Santa's elves rolled into one, for his annual office party, a real wood fire makes the ambience everything an illustrator could invent. Yet, it could be any winter day, too far from what I now look on as "home," rather than almost the eve of the most-celebrated holiday of the year in the western hemisphere.

The fact that we have snow due in an hour or so, that the decorations are lavish, pretty, traditional, and that I'm in the bosom of my family seems as though I should be not only grateful (which I certainly am), but also "in the mood," which I'm afraid I'm not. Immediately after that remark, we all think of the conventional wisdom of looking for the important things and not seeking satisfaction from the wrong sources. That advice is still perfectly valid, and still does little to reconcile me with my place (I mean where I am in a physical sense). One more time, I am reminded of how inescapable one's geographical location is in one's emotional and spiritual status.

An effort of will is sometimes less than sufficient to the job.