Happy New Year, everyone.

After a couple of weeks of shouting into the Void about still being displaced, First Reader and I have accepted that the dream of returning to the mountain will have to wait until Spring. Having heard from our sales rep this week, she confirmed what we were beginning to suspect—the house movers don’t want to drag our house up the mountain in the winter. I mean, I can’t say that I blame them. After all, who likes working in frigid temperatures? I don’t.

I have a whole litany of curses running through my head, then I realize that all I have are First-World problems and that there are those in the world who have far less than we do. That’s when I count my blessings, take a deep breath, and thank the Creator for all we have. Then I run into the TV room to give Best Riding Buddy a big ol’ hug for putting up with us.

As I look ahead to 2023, I can see us back on the mountain by summer, drinking coffee on our deck. We’ll begin to clear the burned timber to make way for new growth, taking care not to strip the hill and cause undue erosion. The grasses have taken hold, and the meadow looked fabulous last summer, though I didn’t see as much wild bergamot as in the past. I expect much the same for this summer. The sparse forest holding the hillside in place was turned into blackened trunks, and we have a lot of work to do to replace what was lost.

Waiting has been the most challenging part of this journey because whenever we think we’re moving ahead, we suddenly stop. Then we wait. I took last week off from doing much of anything that didn’t revolve around holiday festivities because my batteries needed a recharge. All this waiting is draining. So, I bought a new video game I’d been eyeballing for a few months (it went on sale, how could I pass it up? 😏). What a hoot that game is! It’s a spoof of the dungeon crawl, with all the old video game tropes. It has the know-it-all Wizardess, the dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks Barbarian who wants to smash everything in sight, and the Ranger as the leader who constantly questions his abilities. That’s just the beginning of the antics. The Dwarf and the Elf are the best part (I think) in how they constantly snark at each other. Not one of the characters has a name; they are all called by their job description. I needed a good laugh to end the year.

Find something that makes you laugh, and have a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year.