A Glorious Dawn To End The Year

7:11

7:28

8:00

It's 7:40 and I have only been up for an hour. Surprisingly, it's a mostly clear sky above, some clouds off towards Bemus Bay.  It's a fine end to the year, lots of color, a white frozen lake, with an occasional fisherman trudging out on to the frozen lake.

8:03

It's hard to believe another year is gone.  I can remember as a kid, reading about WW I and thinking how long ago 1916 seemed, wondering what it would have been like to live then, and here I am now, having just lived through 2016, a hundred years later. "How did it get so late so soon (Dr. Seuss)."

Yesterday was a different kind of day, mostly thanks to my neighbor, Jim Fox, who suggested to Evie that he loved to rearrange furniture and suggesting ways we could utilize our bookcase/fireplace area.  This brief aside was all that was needed to get Evie going, rearranging furniture, an awfully small space to begin with and an area we have never quite been happy with.  Before she began the marathon of furniture rearranging, however, we both went outside around 10:30 to dig out our car and clean our parking area which, fortunately, had been plowed early in the morning by Shane.  I had to clear a two foot snow drift which was blocking our car from moving which took some time but I eventually was able to pull it out and park it in our parking area.  While I was doing this, Evie was over at our neighbor's house, the Jones's, helping them look for the keys to their rental car which David had lost the night before while sledding with his grandson.  Evie took over a large, heavy magnet which we have used to find metal objects in the lake, but they were able to finally find the keys using a rake.  Evie then came back and worked on the parking area while I was in the house warming up.  It was a delightful morning, with great, light snow, perfect for snowball making or sledding, like our neighbors' kids were doing.

After a lunch of egg salad sandwiches and vegetable soup, I took a nap while watching some football and Evie surreptitiously started her furniture rearranging.  The problem, however, is that the area is quite small and when we put in more than two pieces of furniture, the area begins to look like a furniture showroom.  While she worked, I napped for only 20 minutes, but I was up just as Evie was pulling our rattan couch off of the front porch into the living room.  I helped her bring it in and then for the next couple of hours, Evie worked at every possible combination of chairs, couches, ottomans, and kalims or rugs until she ran out of steam, out of combinations and finally had enough.  Enough, however, is never enough as she just finished rearranging the area. again,  a few minutes ago and confessed that before she went to bed last night, she did a final rearranging.  Obsessed?

How Many Permutations Can There Be? 

Late afternoon, we were both able to sit down and enjoy dusk with a glass or two of wine.  And it began to snow, so it was another early evening winter wonderland.  For dinner, Evie heated up leftover chicken paprikash and noodles and it was better than the night before, as the flavors seemed to meld and the sauce thickened.  We then watched three episodes of THE NIGHT MANAGER on Amazon Prime.  I had just finished the novel so it was fun for me to see how they changed the story to fit a cinematic experience.  We went up to bed  around 10:30, hoping for and getting a good night's sleep.