Good morning! Good day to you! And with wishes for a good year ahead!
I say these words with utter earnestness, even though many would regard 2025 as one of the most difficult years of our lives if not our nation's history, and my morning session of doom scrolling revealed that there is much unnecessary suffering in this world. Too, news trickled in about ailing friends facing daunting challenges, so one may well ask -- where is there room for a good year ahead?
Well, we start with the fact that you and I are alive and still thinking straight. I say this with utmost certainty because I am writing and you are reading, and that takes brain power and some tactile and visual dexterity. So, here we are, made it to 2026, brain still functional. That's a good beginning, isn't it?
My Henry woke me at 6:15, but I put him off for a half hour. When I finally decided that staying in bed was just plain mean, given my pup's urgent needs, I got up ever so quietly. Ed, predictably, was still sleeping.
Henry, would you like to say Happy New Year to Ocean readers?
He is a living example of how bad luck isn't necessarily the end of the story for you. Things can change. Drastically. For the better. My happy boy is loved so much! He suffers now from too much attention (I am told by my very wise daughters), certainly not too little. His home is warm, food is plentiful. Luck, revisited.
New Year's Day. It's bitter cold outside. 6F/-14C. Sweater time again for Henry (and warmest jacket for me).
I hesitate with breakfast. I like eating with Ed, but I have gotten used to a far earlier morning meal here at the Edge and frankly, putting off coffee for a couple more hours seems... off-putting. So Henry and I stick with our routines. I keep the door to the bedroom closed, but that really puzzles Henry, so I open it and we keep the noise down to joyful classical music in the background. Ed sleeps through it all.
When he is finally up, I get him to help me set up a security camera and a door protector for when I attempt to leave Henry alone. I could do both myself, but when I do these things with Ed, they become projects, whereas when I try to figure them out on my own, they are chores.
He returns to the farmette then, to feed his group of animals. Henry rests, with me by his side.
The three of us meet up again in the afternoon. Henry needs his dog park run and going to Ed's park means we get to have Ed with us for the walk. Both Henry and I love that!
There aren't many dogs in the park, which surprises me. Doesn't everyone need to get their pup out on the first of a new year?
Still, Henry manages to get his zoomies out.
We do two loops and for him, that's just pure heaven.
It's a cold day today, but the wind is light and I have to say, I don't mind the deep freeze at all. A couple of inches of snow gifts a January freshness to the landscape. If I were to grumble, it would be over the absence of sunshine lately. But I'm not in a grumbly mood. Perhaps it's because I really do not have resolutions, broken or unbroken. As a humor piece in the New Yorker stated, New Year's resolutions are those special little promises you make to be less like yourself and more like other, better people. We have such trouble accepting our own imperfections!
Henry and I take it easy tonight. Leftovers for me, plain old dog food for him. And a snuggle on the couch. We're having a happy New Year so far and we really do hope that yours is shaping up to be great as well.
with so much love...
