Blargeaster.

The nor'easter came nor'east from, I guess, sou'west, and hit us in the n'ose between Wednesday night and Thursday morning. And I should know. Because I have two dogs who are big and hairy and enjoy the snow, so they kept me out during the evening on Wednesday and were up with me at four on Thursday. 

Wednesday night I was huddling under the deck, and junior varsity dog Nipper was sitting in the backyard doing nothing. So I thought I'd get his picture, which was cute. He's a little hard to see due to the snowfall.

Honest, he's in there somewhere.

Not much else to report. We got about 16 inches of powdery snow, so I shoveled a lot. All the while I'm praying not to reinjure my back. Looks like I got through okay, at least this time. More time-consuming is the dogs, who love the snow but need to be dried off. Fortunately it's not good packing snow, which tends to stick to Nipper's fuzz in these huge clumps. My wife got a dog blow dryer a couple of years ago just to get them off him.

Meanwhile I'm suddenly loaded up on freelance work because I'm hanging around. About the beginning of November clients will say, "Soooo.... Got any plans for the holidays?" "No, staying home." Which means Fred is available. And thank God for that -- going to need the cheddar to pay for the Christmas.

All of which means I have little to share today, I'm afraid. BUT! There is an important Christmas tree update! 

📢update...update...update📢

Remember on St. Nicolas's Day when I said that I lost one of the branches from our artificial tree? Well, guess what fell out of the tree when I was putting up the last of the ornaments. That's right! The little branch had gotten entangled with a large branch on the bottom. I'm looking around for a place to add just one more ornament when suddenly a fully decorated branch fell out of the back. So our tree (wife calls it Doug) is back in business for another year. 

I hesitate to call it a Christmas miracle, but I'll take it.