The point is to learn from whatever is experienced, whether it's liked or disliked, beautiful or ugly. Everything will teach us if we let it.

~ Ajahn Amaro, Finding the Missing Peace

1) nutmeg on an early morning eggnog latte.

2) a soft and gentle snowfall that began as I started a walk through the forest, getting heavier with every step, and when I returned home, the flakes became large and puffy.

3) when we stopped at a store to buy more white Christmas tree lights, and then got home to find inside the white light box were colored lights! This was a holiday surprise that has led to our first ever multicolored and white lighted Christmas tree... which is surprisingly delightful.

Thank you for being in this practice,

Rain

Sweater Weather: A Love Song to Language

Never better, mad as a hatter,

right as rain, might and main,

hanky panky, hot toddy,

hoity-toity, cold shoulder,

bowled over, rolling in clover,

low blow, no soap, hope

against hope, pay the piper,

liar liar pants on fire,

high and dry, shoo-fly pie,

fiddle-faddle, fit as a fiddle,

sultan of swat, muskrat

ramble, fat and sassy,

flimflam, happy as a clam,

cat's pajamas, bee's knees,

peas in a pod, pleased as punch,

pretty as a picture, nothing much,

lift the latch, double Dutch,

helter-skelter, hurdy-gurdy,

early bird, feathered friend,

dumb cluck, buck up,

shilly-shally, willy-nilly,

roly-poly, holy moly,

loose lips sink ships,

spitting image, nip in the air,

hale and hearty, part and parcel,

upsy daisy, lazy days,

maybe baby, up to snuff,

flibbertigibbet, honky-tonk,

spic and span, handyman,

cool as a cucumber, blue moon,

high as a kite, night and noon,

love me or leave me, seventh heaven,

up and about, over and out.

~ Sharon Bryan

Christmas Tree Elves

Charlotte, Vermont