Sweeter Still, a foray into a new world

It could all be a bust, you know.

I've started plenty of projects in the past, only to abandon them.  Knitted mittens without a thumb, a sleep sack for my baby with unfinished seams, even the doll quilt when I was ten.  It's pieced, but never quilted or hemmed.  I am not proud of these things.  I have a penchant for creativity, getting jazzed up by the ideas and mired in the work.  When it gets hard, or tiresome, or boring, I stop.

So, it could all be a bust, this "blog."

Blog.  This is my blog.

I feel silly and self-conscious, wanting to pull up the thesaurus on Word for security.  As though dozens were reading, when I'm quite sure I'm typing out into the void, one little hashmark on the internet superhighway.  There is too much to see, it's all too fast, I am too little.

But little is good, and quiet is good, and simple is good.  I strive for all three.  Tonight, in the Midwest, we are blanketed in perfect, fluffy snow that is too sweet to stick together and perfect for snow fairies and angels.  Our first snow of the season, here on the Feast of St. Nicholas.  My husband is traveling again, but tonight it feels different.  I miss him, but it's ok that he's gone.  Our firstborn, she sleeps in the next room over, the one with the yellow walls, where the attic eaves meet and the brick of the chimney climbs the wall, where I can hear her squeaks and sighs.  (She is nine-months-old, and in blogland, she is named Pearl.)  She has been sleeping through the night for a couple of months now, blessedly, and I have felt that I am coming back to life in the last few weeks.  So, though my husband is gone, I do not pout in the darkness, or begrudge tonight's bedtime routine with my daughter.  I did my motherly duty with deep and silent joy, nursing her to dreamland in the nook of her room, hating to lay her down there in her crib, wanting to hold her all night long.  I cleaned up the dishes and emptied her bath.  I waited for the dark with a small smile, eager to dress in flannels under the duvet in our attic bedroom, cozy despite the chill.  You see, I have been waiting for this.  For a little, quiet, simple night to write.  I have missed it.

So yes, the snow is sweet out there tonight, as we hunker down in Jesus' sweet Advent, and in my heart, things feel sweeter still.