I'll tell ya what. I don't have a bunch of time to write this. I'm supposed to be traveling to my mom's in a calm and collected fashion rather than procrastinating and then rushing off. But, I had a few thoughts and have been terrible at blogging lately so I'm going to roll with it.

I love that Buster likes to be inside in the winter. He sleeps on the back of the armchair in our bedroom. Lily often gets up there with him. But, mostly that's his spot, surrounded by windows and getting hair all over our stuff.

The chickens are doing well. We got three eggs yesterday, one each from Maggie, Foxy and Shorty. Shorty's was pretty silly, tiny and sandpapery, but it has a shell and that's a big step forward for her. We also have two new hens (surprise!), Bantam Buff Orpingtons. We named them Virginia and Carolina, in honor of two red states that went blue for Obama. How Seattle are we? Naming our backyard chickens after Obama states. Absurd. But, you can't stop the beat.

We rearranged our living room again, something we like to do about once every other week just to keep it exciting here. Sometimes watching the cat play with foil gets old so we have to amuse ourselves in new and exciting ways. But, I think this living room arrangement is here to stay. We also have our tree, which needs lights, decorations and probably water. And, speaking of trees, we have about two or three of them all chopped up, scattered in logs on and around our porch. Once we got rid of all the bikes on our porch we had to get a doghouse up there to keep the redneck faith. Then we sold the doghouse and put a cage of chickens out there for a couple months. Then we got the chickens new homes and weren't sure what to do with a vacant, clean porch. So, we filled it with cedar rounds. It's back to how it belongs, cluttered and country.

That's all. I really need to go now. Foxy is still running around the yard so I hope I can catch her in less than five minutes so I don't miss this boat.

It's been a while.

I've done a bad job at writing lately. I'm not sure why. Maybe because since breaking my no-list streak I've been spending more time on to-do lists than this stuff. Or maybe because we've been busy hunting for free firewood, chopping and moving said firewood, getting more chickens, working, thinking up rugby workouts, eating ice cream, drinking beer, playing fetch with the dogs, watching way too much 24, finally seeing more of our friends, puttering in the yard but not actually getting anything done, seeing my family, seeing Molly's family, cleaning out e-mails, messing up the house, building fires, making dinner, talking to old friends, reading, spraying the cat with vinegar and water. That sort of stuff. But, in doing it all, the season seems like it's flying by. Maybe after we charge the camera I can do a picture update of where we are with everything, what we've been up to for the past month. We'll see. For now, it's been enough that we have some balmy wet days and crisp sunny days. We've been lucky for the past couple weeks. And it's the holidays. Lake City is full of lights and woodsmoke and wreaths and always the lights and sirens. Charlie is getting less shy about howling in front of us now. An engine passed us on our walk to the field and he cried along with it, on his leash, on the street. It's that sort of winter.