lost and found

I can't believe it! I finally found those %*&^ pink headphones. Over the last year and a half I've spent days looking. I tore apart the house several times in my mad quest. Where could the darn things have gone? I had no idea and eventually gave up looking.

Today I decided to play a bit of Christmas music from my phone. I dug out the speakers and opened the tin they are stored in... and there... in all their pink glory sat the ever searched for headphones. I will admit to shouting a few expletives, partially in joy, but also with some level of frustration. So much time wasted...

After settling into a grand old funk the last few days I knew I had to do more than what I had been doing, but what? Well, Christmas is coming, and with that our annual New Years Eve supper. I had to get the house looking a bit festive so I dug out a few bins of decorations to strew around the house while Carm carried the Christmas tree triumpantly to it's annual resting spot. With a flourish I removed the sheet that protected it through the ages. All decorated, it was an instant mood enhancer. Especially when I plugged in the lights, and the bright twinkle shone through the gloom.

Cue the Christmas music (at least until Carm gets home from his errands). A glass of eggnog would be perfect about now.

And there it is: my favorite song already playing. Davie Bowie and Bing Crosby singing 'Little Drummer Boy' and 'Peace on Earth' in an emotional medley. And over too soon.

A strange knocking sound echoed in the house. What the heck? A walk around, listening to the basement, the garage, the front door, didn't reveal anything. It was only when I noticed the woodpecker on the tree outside the greatroom that I clued in. Yup - a medium sized woodpecker was knocking on the evestroph downspout.  The house always seems to be under assault from one bird or another. In the spring the cardinal likes to fling himself against our bedroom window... at the crack of dawn :-(

Some pleasures: finding my headphones; twinkling lights on the Christmas tree; a walk around the field in this grey day - gosh where is the sun? puttering around putting out a few decorations, just enough to be festive, but not so many that it will take me ages to take them all down; duck plop soup for lunch, with a warm biscuit with butter and jam; setting the table for company tonight; a flash of blue in the spruce tree.

"A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all — he's walking on them."
~Leonard Louis Levinson