I'm amazed at how difficult it sometimes is to write about relatively simple things. I sat down almost two weeks ago to write about the last weekend in Finland. I figured I could do that in about an hour, but it seems that details keep creeping up that NEED to be told (I don't know why they NEED to be told, ask them), and as a result, I have the events of one day posted and another getting close. I promise one thing, as I get into the time in Helsinki I will NOT do a day by day , but will clump things in categories and get them over. Part of me wants to skip the whole Finland experience and start writing about things that interest me right now, the other part wants to document what happened over there if no one reads it but my children and grandchildren (and brothers and sisters -- and cousins--- and---oh well!) . Right now, we have been home for a month, Jan is getting better every day. Some times she goes wandering around the house without her walker (though sometimes she has to "holler me up" from the other room to bring it to her). Trying to get organized to "do" anything is a pain. Wrapping Christmas presents has come to feel like a full time job, and we don't even have very many. (Most of them came in suitcases from Finland). Part of that is because neither of us has a very lengthy span of attention. I'll sit down to wrap a present which reminds me of something else and I find myself in the other room, not remembering why I am there, and the doggone package just sits there half-wrapped.

The pride of feral cats in the back yard is growing, but I feed them anyway. I originally allowed them to come around to control the squirrels in my back yard that were eating all my pecans. About a week ago, a couple of guys came along offering to rake my yard (which had reached a "looks like hell" stage,) so I paid them to rake the yard, haul everything out to the side of the road etc. etc. It wasn't till they had finished the job and the city truck had come along and picked up the debris when I realized that in that debris was all of this year's pecans which I had been protecting from the squirrels. Oh well, that means that somewhere in a refuse pit or other site little pecan trees will sprout in futility, and that none of my relatives will receive candied pecans for Christmas. At least when I left them to the squirrels, the squirrels would plant them in the flower pots under the window but these will all be somewhere else. Well, back to writing about the adventure, but I think I will rip off some "by the ways" in between. To those of you who have hung on through the dry spell, Happy Christmas, Glorious New Year, and to those who live it, happy politics. (I probably will still drop caustic comments or flattering nuggets into your comment column.) By the way, have any of you tried the new beta program (I guess it is just the new program now) I have been tempted, but have a gut feeling that everything I have written is going to evaporated into the ethos-- or ether or something.