I am thankful for the many wonderful Christmas presents I received this year. I got a great new coffee maker that I love love love because it makes it possible for me to enjoy a real cup of coffee in my home without being wasteful or compromising on taste, which is a real treat for me and something I very much enjoy. I got beautiful jewelry from my husband and the sweetest of gifts, the trash fleece. So many nice things from so many nice people and I am truly grateful (but if you are immediate family, you won't get a thank you note from me-I don't believe in it for you and you know that about me by now!).

Right now I am most grateful for a gift from Alex and Em. It is almost a silly gift, as it some something I will consume in the matter of two weeks and then will move past. And it is silly as it is a gift designed for the teen set and I am eating it up like a 14 year old. Yes, I'm talking about the Twilight series. I have read the first three books this week and I have really enjoyed getting lost in the series. I love to read, I mean LOVE to read and hardly read books without pictures these days. I love that we have already instilled a love of reading in Grant and I'm happy to give up my time with books to share my time with him and his books. But reading this series has given me the escape I've desperately needed over the last month. It has been hard-I won't lie. I've felt bad and more than bad, I've felt lost. Something that is so natural was so difficult and ended so suddenly and shook the one thing in this world that I thought I was designed to do. So, finding me a little me time and a chance to escape into someone elses world and someone elses problem has been nice. Especially because it is a world of fantasy-these aren't problems I will ever face, being tracked by a vampire and fearing for my life in that way. I've been in a world where I was torn between my Edward and my Jacob so I can relate, but it is easier to get lost in the story. Last night I finished book three and I'm sad and not looking forward to book four. I've always been like this when I read. I can't stand the end. I've been known to be consumed with a book and then walk away for weeks so I can hold off on the climax and ending. It is like losing a friend to say goodbye like that. It makes me sad and that makes me a dork on a normal day, but these haven't been what I would call normal days for me, so I worry that I will lose this nice cocoon I have created for myself this week. And in a world without Glee to fall back on...