Welcome Rain!

California isn’t the only area suffering from a long-term drought.  If you have been a follower at my “Cottage” for any length of time, you know posts have been few and far between for the past couple of years!  And non-existent since late in 2015.  Lots of reasons [uh…excuses?…] for the sparse posts. The reason for the absence in November and December—the untimely death of my desktop computer—and the loss of hundreds of photos, scans, fonts, etc., etc. So disheartening!

Thanks to Dick’s ability to transplant the heart and soul of the old computer (new processor, ma board, power supply, hard drive, video card, and most other vital components) I’m up and running again. It was necessary to upgrade from Windows XP (told you she was old) to Windows 10. The upgrade meant installing all new software and “??? apps”, surprisingly quite a few of the old programs are Win 10 compatible which was a nice bonus. The only thing that’s left is to buy a cable that will turn the old hard drive into an external so I can access all of the above hundreds of…  Well, you get the idea.

So…told you all of that to say: it’s been raining for the past couple of days. A wonderful respite from the drought of the past four years. Things are green! There was water in the creek this morning – a first in a long while.  These photos I took earlier today show the lovely and restoring effect of rain around the cottage and down the lane.

rain clouds – east

rain clouds – south

puddles in lane

all washed clean

pink camillia

snowdrops

pushing up spring

Welcome passion and purpose…

All of the aforementioned (love that huge old fashioned word – aforementioned, makes me feel so literate) restorative power has also touched something in my soul. There is a renewed sense of passion and purpose connected with my blogging that came with the new year.

I’ve started a series entitled “Morning Devotions” to share the quite time inspirations I enjoy most with you all. The thought is to share something inspirational every day except Sunday.

Dick has started a revamp of the garden area and again the thought is to share the process here as it progresses.

I’m still working on compiling some of our favorite recipes into book form, and there are several chapters of a new book on the back burner that I plan on dusting off and completing.

Wow! That looks suspiciously like goals for 2016. I’ll let you know how it’s going. Pray for me, that I won’t be an eager beaver starter and a no-show at the finish line. I’ve done that enough in the past. But, considering the way things feel today…the drought is at an end here, too.