Happy New Year, from my trailer to yours...

 photo from stolkholms stadsmission

Or, at least, to your metaphorical trailer... whatever your creative space happens to be!

Speaking of creativity,  look what my writer friend Laura Pritchett gave me (and our other writing group members) for Christmas...

It's a writer's snow globe! I LOVE snowglobes... and this is the first homemade one I've gotten.  Laura's the author of some wonderful fiction (Hell's Bottom, Colorado and Sky Bridge) and she's edited a bunch of great environmentally-themed anthologies, one of which is Going Green-- it's all about cool ways of gleaning new uses for junk.

Her card was made by a friend of ours, Libby, who makes art from old teabags!  You can read an excerpt from her essay about her teabag art in Going Green here.  As a tea fiend, I really appreciate her work.... so pretty!  I love the color of tea.

And here's Laura's sweet message inside... a sentiment I wish for you who are writers, too.

I'm so grateful for Laura and the other amazing writers (and readers!) in my life.  Around this time of year, I feel overwhelmed with gratitude.  This month marks the *three year anniversary* of my Lil Dude's arrival from Guatemala. He was eight months old when he came, just scooting around and belting out "Da!" and clapping, his mouth wide open in delight.  Now that he's here, I love how our home feels so full, spilling over with his exuberant energy (not to mention, lots of toy firetrucks, trains, stuffed animals...) 

And I'm grateful for my mom who has, once again, dropped everything to help me finish the next of the Notebooks series-- in this case, THE JADE NOTEBOOK-- so I can meet my January deadline to hand the manuscript in to my editor. Thank you, Mom!

 

And I'm grateful for the little everyday joys that come with living where I do, at the foot of the Rockies... There are rainbows galore here.  We saw this full rainbow arc at the end of our street one morning last week.  It took our breath away.  Lil Dude and I stood in the middle of our street for a while, in a state of wonder.  "That's so cool, Mommy!" he kept saying.  Of course, he wanted to follow the rainbow, find where it touched down... 

Much love and many happy winter wishes to you and yours!

xoxo,

Laura