It was a wild and crazy apricot season, with my little tree netting 75 jars of jam. This meant picking apricots daily, checking the ground (some of which is the community greenbelt) for fallen fruit usually twice daily, and making 3 batches of jam per week. It was, by all accounts, exhausting, but the jam is delicious.

My sister is a great gift-giver. The best I know. She almost never asks me for ideas, she just spends the year quietly collecting things that make her think of me, things she thinks I'll like, and then I open her Christmas gifts having absolutely no idea what to expect. These kinds of gifts are my favorite to open, and they are usually spot on. Which proves what is possible when you truly know someone.

Last year's Thanksgiving post (Grateful) remains my most trafficked to date. Like, by far. As in thousands and thousands more hits than anything else I have ever written. It baffles me a little, because the post was about heartbreak. And are people really that interested in my romantic misfortune? Probably not. But most everyone can probably relate...love and loss inevitably go hand in hand.