ba-ack

[mrissa]

markgritter and missista and I arrived home safely last night. Iowa in the dark, fog, and snow cover felt like an interminable tunnel of gray. Not necessarily in a bad way, except for the interminable part.

Our new goddaughter, Makenna, is a very fine baby indeed. She is good-tempered and inquisitive and fascinated with the dog that was like but unlike her dog. She kept looking at Ista like, "Augie, how'd you do that? I didn't know you could change color!" She cooed when sprinkled with water and flailed excitedly when she saw the flame on the candle, so I'm thinking the "let your light so shine before others" is not going to be a problem for this kiddo. We are remarkably lucky in our godkids.

I am to the point in my Christmas shopping where "finish Christmas shopping" has been removed from my list and replaced with items like "get greykev [item redacted]: [store redacted]." This represents progress, significantly so. There are still many, many things to do this week, of course. But we're getting there. Book book book. Wrap wrap wrap. Etc.