"I Can See Clearly Now" by Nash is one of my all time favourite songs. It cheers me up right away.

His voice is so smooth. Instant mellow. It doesn't get better than that.

would probably be much happier in the Pacific Northwest.

::nods, beckons:: There's lots of room here! In the meantime, safe travels!

I have been slightly adversely affected by the shorter winter days, and by longer stretches between sunny days. The trade-off for me has been gorgeousness everywhere I look, and an actual liveable-in summer, less-intense allergies, and as Barb says, greater appreciation and delight in the glorious sunny days we have.

The heat and humidity drove me from NC and would preclude my living in NOLA, but it's wonderful to read how happy Nora is there, and smonster would like to be.

I'd love to wish less snow and winterishness upon Windsparrow and Daniel, though.

Also? I'd like to petition and am actively working to change common useage of the phrase "global warming" to "global climate change". The former can be scoffed at, refuted by transient condtions. The increasing freakiness and unpredictability of climate conditions can be put down with an insistently pointing finger to the latter.

I'm play the Nash version again. Serious mellow needed. I just received a package of stuff my mother wanted me to have - she had my brother ship it. One layer in, has revealed an old King James Version of the Bible that I left behind ages ago, and a twin bed sized comforter that I bought 15 years ago (and she told me she let one of her dogs sleep on when it was sick). Give me strength.

Does she think I don't have a Bible? I have one, that Dad gave me, a more modern translation. Plus I have a really nifty paraphrase-type New Testament, done by a classics scholar rather than a religious scholar, interesting and enlightening word choices with some of the colloquialisms.

Oh.

My grandmother's silver tea service is in there.

So, anything else, if I don't love it, did honorable duty as packing material.

I have finished wrapping all the gifts for TCG, i.e. all the gifts he can't help me with when he gets home tonight. The Doctor Who Christmas paper that I think was linked to here a while back was of very nice quality, and there was enough of it to wrap all my gifts for TCG. Which mainly consisted of books and CDs. Now if my extended family would stop making it so incredibly difficult for me to see them this year, I would stop being so stressed.

And the afghan my sister made me for Christmas my senior year of high school, in school colors.

I have my grandmother's tea service. It's good to have, even if I have churlishly refused the entire ginormpus dinnerware set of my great-grandmother's Limoges with pick rosebuds and gold edges.

Doctor Who wrapping paper? How cool.

My aunt is going into assisted living, so she's doing her final round of getting rid of everything she has that isn't vital. After her first round, I got Great-Grandma Alida's pearls and her cut-glass lamp. Next time Dad goes out to see my aunt, he'll be getting the rest of the set that goes with the lamp--candlesticks, bigger bowl, candy bowl, and something else. I have no idea where I'll put them, but I'll make sure it's someplace the cat can't reach.

My great-grandparents weren't well-off by any means (he was a barber), but she did have some nice pieces that are pretty, even if they're not valuable. I'm thinking about having her pearls (small pinkish color ones, not the big round white ones) restrung so I can start wearing them eventually.

Did you all here about the snow in Australia ? it is supposed to be summer there.

I vaguely recall something about it... Its been an interesting week, with frequent thunderstorms (we got caught in a storm while out walking with Ryan on Sunday. He loved it, naturally. Daddy is so funny when he's chilled to the bone!) I wore my winter coat to work the last couple of days.

I don't mind, really. I don't do well with the heat, and Melbourne has had severe water restrictions for a few years now. This Spring has brought the reserves back above 50% and eased the restrictions. Plus, compared to what's been going on in the northern hemisphere, well.

But I'm still glad that the Christmas forecast is 28 and sunny.