Our gas was finally reconnected on Tuesday afternoon and we no longer had to camp out or go back and forth between our house and Tyler’s. It was glorious! The first thing Rick did was heat the jacuzzi. The first thing I did was make a dinner of Rack of Lamb, roasted potatoes and greek salad. We turned the heater up to ridiculously warm. Making up for lost time…..

I needed a little break from writing-I felt like the whole no gas thing was making my increasingly whiny and annoying, so I wanted to save everyone from that nonsense!

The weeks leading up to Christmas have flown by….it seems like no matter what it is we try to accomplish, we only get a small part completed. We went to the funeral of the 32 year old daughter of one of Rick’s friends/customers on Thursday. Wow. Someone so young struck down by cancer puts a lot in to perspective. No one should have to bury their children. It is supposed to be the other way around, and I guess we should not be surprised when our parents die. I am really trying to remind myself of that when I start to get too sad.

Tyler finally got to spend his first full week in the house without having to travel for work. He is starting to settle in and get comfortable there. He loves the wonderful neighbors he inherited-now if only the cats would start to get along! Schnapps is being a big bully. I don’t know if animals grieve, but I swear to god, he acts like that is exactly what is going on with him. Rick would tell me to not project human emotions on to an animal, but the heck with that.

I look forward to seeing many of you on the 27th, and like I said before, if you know of someone who would like to come, please pass it along. The more the merrier. It will be cocktails and appetizers and such, buffet style (since we don’t have a good head count) and hopefully some nice reminiscing. If you have any photos you’d like to share or stories you’d like to tell, that would be wonderful. We’d like to keep it casual and low pressure.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!