New Year's Exclusive

Happy New Year! Well, 2008's certainly holding new things for me. For instance, this will be the first year I've ever lived alone, meaning that I'll spend a lot of my time listening to that phantom ticking noise in the lake cabin (where is it coming from and how do I stop it?!) and plotting the next great way to lure visitors out to my neck-o-the-semi-arid-land ("woods" doesn't quite fit for Abilene terrain).

My now former roommate, Amber Joy, is currently en route to her next great adventure: 13 weeks as a traveling nurse in California. (Sounds like great fun, doesn't it?) Today she's romping around at the Grand Canyon. Here's an exclusive picture of her catching some zzz's on New Year's Eve in preparation for her early morning departure. (The cats felt that they needed to get in on that awesome napping action, too.)


Aww! Isn't that sweet?! I just couldn't resist sharing. Hehehe.

Doesn't Alley look so peaceful in this picture? Well, don't let such appearances fool you! This morning as I sipped my freshly ground, fair-trade Columbian coffee (thanks, Henricksens!) in a lovely 8-cup French Press (gracias, Russ!), I heard her come onto the porch. Desperate for the company of something other than the Phantom (tick... tick... tick), I cracked the door open to greet her. She bolted in with a LIVE BIRD clenched between her teeth, and promptly let it go in my bedroom so she could play with her food inside. I managed to catch it and take it back outside before any serious blood-letting could occur, and returned to my leisured coffee-sipping while the Phantom ticked away. So begin my solo lake cabin adventures...