I'm Trying To Write To You All But I Have A Pug Asleep On My Head... And ... Why You Shouldn't Be Stressed Out Over Christmas...

I am typing away on my computer
and Sammy is asleep against my neck...


Well, if there was ever a less attractive picture of me I surely don't know where it might be, but Sampson is adorable and really, in the end, isn't that what counts? It's just the fact that he is snoring rather loudly in my ear that makes it, uhm, rather hard to concentrate...

I have just written to a dear friend and it has given me much food for thought and helped me to relax. This last weekend I had my usual pre-Christmas panic and high-anxiety attack. I called my daughter Rachel who is getting her Master's in Clinical Psychology and told her it was nice having a free shrink in the family (until I see my own on Wednesday) and I needed my head shrunk a little until I could get there. She told me the best thing I could give the family was not to get myself all upset and just relax and enjoy Christmas. Inotherwords, do what you can, forget the rest, and enjoy the day. That helped enormously...

Sam is now asleep ON my head and his snoring is echoing
through the chambers of my pretty much empty cranium.
Tis the season...


What I told my dear friend was that the biggest Aha! moment I've ever had around the holidays was four years ago when I fell down the stairs and broke both feet badly, and was in 2 casts for 6 months. It was December 8 when I went tripping down the stairs like one of the Dancing Hippos in Disney's Fantasia. I spent the whole season with my feet up in the air, unable to do anything, and my dear kids came morning and night and took care of my animals and I, my mother was here over Christmas and nursed me along, and I didn't get Christmas presents finished, nor a single cookie baked, much less prepare any of the feast, and you know what? Christmas went right on anyway, believe it or not, and it was one of the loveliest, stress-free Christmases ever. When you really can't do anything, you have to just let go, and you see the beauty and the sparkle of the season, the loving family, you meditate on the Christmas tree lights after dark, eat the wonderful meal brought to you with family mulling about, and... well ... thinking of this I stopped and thought -- and shared with my friend who is going through a hard time -- that if we can STOP when we HAVE to, then we can stop when we NEED to. The holidays are not worth a nervous breakdown, making yourself sick, or nuts, or about as useful as a bourbon soaked fruitcake. (I shudder. One of my mother's friends used to bring her one of these every year and she loved them and they used to make me turn kind of green and go weak in the knees with, well, blech, you get the picture...)




You see I really am trying to write this entry but...




Sam keeps shifting and now I am wearing a pug earmuff...


When you are an artist and writer who works from home you can be certain of a few things. You will write with one or five pugs near or on your person, perhaps a feather from one of the five parrots stuck in your hair somewhere, and good old Sam, only 9 years old, snoring on your head like a ninety year old man. One long snnnnnnnnnnoooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeee, and then he breathes out with a little puff of air so his fat little lips bump against my neck for a second and I giggle. I am thinking deep thoughts but giggling and it is near impossible to write!

Perhaps the most important thing is just to tell you to RELAX so that I can remember to do so as well, and remember that the holidays are meant for joy and love and peace, and not nervous breakdowns, anxiety, and overspending frantically the day before Christmas. Funny how Christmas, like most other days, just drifts along with or without us, so I might as well just sit here and do what I can with a pug on my head, and tell you all that I am sending my love this holiday week. Happy Hannukah, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, and whatever else you may celebrate, I wish you the best. I will be here, with a pug asleep on my head, and life will go on as it always does...

Happy Holidays, Merry Everything...

Love,



I thought I would share with you the tree I had a
few years back with pink lights, hot pink beaded
garland, and flamingos, as well as all manner of
birds from the craft shop. SEE, Christmas is
supposed to be FUN!