It's a chilly morning outside but the fire is blazing cheerfully and already the house is beginning to warm. Tom has settled on a repair guy who can do our furnace work after Thanksgiving, so there's an end in view, though really we're doing more than okay. But the household gods still have us in their cranky gunsights: yesterday morning the heating element blew in my kitchen oven . . . yes, a dead oven right before the biggest cooking holiday of the year. I started calling appliance repair shops, and one told me they were scheduling into January, which made my stomach lurch. I did eventually find someone who can come on Tuesday to replace the element, so for the moment I don't foresee cutting up the turkey into parts and fricasseeing them on the stovetop. Still, given our black cloud, who knows?

But the quotidian trudges forward and it even whistles a little tune. Yesterday my next editing project arrived, meaning that today I'll be back at my desk beginning to sort through files and figure out my tasks. I got the house cleaned yesterday, so for the moment life feels fairly orderly, despite our ongoing domestic disasters. I went out to write last night and scribbled a draft I might like to look at again. This afternoon I'll zoom with Jeannie and Teresa. Tonight I'll play cribbage with my dear one and sear venison steaks for dinner. My big kitten will chirp and cuddle and chase pencils under the couch.

I'm trying to find an appropriate line of poetry to end this we're-hanging-in-there post, but all I can come up with is Tennyson's "Half a league, half a league, half a league onward." That line is entirely inappropriate to the situation and therefore I will leave you with it.