"Never give up! Never surrender!"

Last night I did not throw out the unrisen lussekatter dough. It had not risen for three hours, and I didn't feel like washing out the bowl yet, so I threw the damp towel back over it and went to bed.

Friends, we have a Santa Lucia morning surprise. The dough has riz.

So last night's lessons about balance and knowing when to redirect and when to be gentle, they are important, and I will be trying not to forget them this holiday. They're good lessons.

But "don't be too quick to give up and throw it away" is a pretty darn good lesson, too, and one I needed this year. One I needed pretty badly, in fact. So I'm going to do a few more of the revisions to What We Did to Save the Kingdom, and then I'm going downstairs to knead my lussekatter dough. timprov and I didn't have them for breakfast this morning, but markgritter and the sun are not up yet. There's still time for all this to work out.

Happy Santa Lucia Day.