Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Middle of the afternoon of the last day of the year

I was outside today just long enough to go from the car into the restaurant and back again, and yet I'm wheezing like a steam engine pulling a full load of steel up a steep mountain. Asthma is truly annoying.

Before picking up a friend for a late breakfast (At a local eatery that was just named both "best brunch" and "best cheap eats" locally for 2013, a place that I'd never been (in part because since the first day it opened it's been jammed - have I mentioned crowds aren't my thing and I hate to wait?). The food, however, was exquisite - a roasted mushroom omelet with Gruyere made in the classic french style (think small fluffy curd and quasi-football shape) with tarragon sauce, fresh fruit, divine hash browns (a mini loaf - very crispy outside, creamy and hot inside) and dark rye toast. I may never eat again. Well, except...) I threw a largish chuck roast into the crock pot. Truth to tell, the darn thing was simply hogging space in the freezer. It will be dinner tonight, lunch tomorrow and then cut and frozen for sandwiches and/or shepherd's pie in the future.

It's not so much that I'm food obsessed, as that I'm cold. Warm food plus a nice warm quilt help fix that (so would putting on shoes, but I hate wearing shoes in the house).

Due to the cold and the nasty things cold air does to the asthma, I've begged off the plans a friend and I had for tonight. It's only going to get colder (it is nine degrees right now; that is the forecast high for the day) and I'd rather not greet the new year waiting in an ER for a breathing treatment. So it will be a quiet, introspective kind of new year's eve around here.

I've not yet gotten around to writing goals down for the year, though I've decided on two to start with. I'm going to read through the entire Bible again, though in a slightly different way and format. I'm also going to track the books I finish from now to the end of 2014, posting occasional lists of them here.  While I file e-boos away in different folders on the Kindle after I've finished them, I never have kept a count of how many I read in a given time frame. There's now a new folder on the main screen for "2014"; I can move them into their home folders after the year is over.

I'm not much the "one word" type (gee, really?) It's not that the concept doesn't have merit, I simply find that the particular goals God's put on my heart for a year or the things I want to accomplish don't usually fit into an overall "theme" without at least a couple of them being manipulated so much they resemble an origami crane.

The hot cocoa I just made is really, um...hot. I'm going to grab a couple of quilts, cozy up in the recliner and wait for it to cool off a bit while I contemplate the year ahead.

Best of new year wishes to you all, and may 2014 be a year of growth, fellowship and ever increasing faith.

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