Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be. It is just past 8:00 a.m. in "The City."

We are just five days before Christmas and the world is still standing, at least for now. Sure, lots of crazy things are going on, and sure, some of them are unpleasant, more for some than others, but in the end, we have within us the ability to adapt and overcome. To use a phrase, "This too shall pass."

The credit for helping me overcome my pain and getting me on the right track towards health and greater happiness in the coming year goes to Mary for the most part. Yes, I've had help from various doctors, physical therapists, Adam and Steph, and of course from the fur-children, but the bulk of the credit has to go to Mary for allowing me to be me.

Yesterday, I only saw half of the train run, I heard the passage southbound @ about 9:15 a.m., but I only saw the northbound run that occurred @ 2:40 p.m. MMRR locomotive #2019 passed by towing 12 CHCs, 11 DBTCs, and two DWTCs, one of those with a green stripe of anticorrosive paint around its mid-section.

I made it to P/T yesterday morning and all went well. I am slowly on the mend. I have additional home exercises to work on to speed my recovery. I'll be seeing the therapist again tomorrow.

We got a lot of indoor chores done yesterday and I did make it into the kitchen for some cooking and cleanup. In the afternoon, we took the fur-children to their doctor's appointment and that went well. Sugar benefited from some antihistamines that we gave her before the visit, but she still had some side effects from her inoculation. Ginger just had to get some blood drawn for her visit, and she came through with flying colors,

I have another book on my desk for my highlighting enjoyment. When it was first announced to me, the total pages were estimated @ over 800. Instead, it is much "thinner", only a shade over 500 pages! FYI, a ream of paper is 500 sheets! Here is what it looks like before I get started. I placed the photo in the extra large mode to give a perspective of how each book looks to me before I start. Of course, Mary has the hard part, I just have to read and highlight.

Today, we have nothing on the agenda and that's good. A morning safari is likely, but that's about it. 

I plan to do some additional reading and Mary plans to get ready for her indexing, but that's it.

We have a current temperature of 29° under partly cloudy skies. Yesterday, the midday reading was in the low 40s and then the day got cooler. The sun will be rising shortly @ 8:12 a.m. and setting later @ 5:12 p.m. after we peak @ today's high temperature of 31°. Ciao.