Feliz Navidad and Adios 'Till Next Year~

We will be celebrating Christmas with our extended family and heading out of town for our older daughter's wedding. I still can't believe I will be a mother in law. If I am as kind and sweet as my own mother in law, then it will be a good thing all the way around.

I won't be in blogland after the next couple of days until the new year, so I hope all of you have a merry, wonderful, and true Christmas and the happiest of holidays. If you know me on Facebook, you already have a preview of a story I will be working of how I found a 6 ft. blue indigo snake in our utility room behind the freezer. I will also be writing one on how a small pack of coyotes perhaps mistook me for their Christmas meal this afternoon when they pursued me while I was on a run. Rural life is never without excitement.

The winner of The Second Book of Pearl giveaway from my last post is Eva Gallant. Congratulations! If you will message me your address, you will be receiving your book very soon.

Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año Nuevo!

This Great New Year

2012 has certainly started off with a bang for us.

• Firstborn Daughter called at 12:30 AM New Year's Eve with exciting news. At exactly midnight, as she and her boyfriend were on the bayfront watching a fireworks display, he dropped to one knee and proposed, presenting her with a gorgeous, vintage diamond ring from the 1920's. She accepted and called to tell us the happy news. They've been dating about a year and a half, both have good careers going for them, and had just been down with us for Christmas. We are just as joyful as they are! I will post a picture of her ring once I can get it from my phone into my computer without any glitches.
• A much lesser thrill, but a thrill nonetheless, is when I stepped on the scale this morning, I had not gained anything, as I had suspected, but had actually lost 2 lbs. over Christmas. Whoohooo!
• My hamstring is finally well enough for me to start training again for my half marathon. It's been almost three months of getting it mostly healed and then hurting it again by training too hard, so hopefully this time will be the charm.
• Teenaged Daughter, 15, will start her first dual enrollment college classes and she is just as excited about that as Firstborn Daughter is about her engagement.
• I could go on with more, but I don't want to be a bore. (Little rhyme there, to release my inner poet)

I really believe, despite what the news says or the economy indicates, that 2012 will be a rich year of abundance and blessings.

What about you? What has this year already brought you in the way of goodness? Sometimes we have to look a little harder to see those good things, but they are there, really they are.