This is the view from the Oasis, where I’ve just spent four hours writing.  I had no idea it was going to snow so much that we’d get a day off!  I’d kind of stopped watching for any impending weather, since we’ve had exactly zero this year.  That was dumb.

Right now, I’m going to go play cards with my kids.  Later, we’re going to go have dinner with close friends.

If this isn’t an absolutely perfect day, I don’t know what is.

Welcome to my new writing room (!) on the 3rd floor. The rug alone brings me joy – and that right there’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.

I’m spending hours in my room typing away on this very computer, typically with coffee in my hand and a snack by my side.  I’m partial to oranges and goldfish crackers these days, though today my daughter Natalie brought me a skewer with apples and bananas and side of peanut butter.  Nothing better.

This place is my sanctuary. It needs a little color on the walls (and the desk, too) but there happen to be few things I dislike more than painting. One of them is forcefully getting water up my nose from a dive that went wrong.

The desk is just an old door we set between sets of pine bookshelves.  Those two framed pictures on the desk are of me hugging Guy on our wedding day and a note Luke wrote me when he was maybe 4 that says “I LUVUE MOM” in pencil.  There’s a big ol’ rooster on the wall that we brought all the way back from China.  I love that damn rooster, and there was just no other place for him.  I’ve named him Linus.  Linus oversees all the blood, sweat and tears.

Lovely readers, I’ve also been published for the first time ever.  I have a short piece in an online publication called Tue/Night.  You can check it by out clicking the following link.    http://tuenight.com/

I’ll have a little bio and a headshot and everything.  Hope you can take a look.  The issue of the week is about drugs, and my piece is personal.  Let me know your thoughts and feel free to share the link and news.

It’s a thing.  It’s a thing we do with nachos.  In our house, Sundays do not include church but we’ve been known to worship ourselves some beer and tasties.  It’s basically a Hamlin revival, only with less “amens”.  And today we’ve got an Old Testament battle with our very own Tom Brady and his Patriots versus some team from somewhere out westish.  They’ve got mountains there or something. I don’t even know.

Now I’m not one of those people who can spout statistics like…well, every male who also lives in this house…but I do love me some football.  And I do so enjoy our family zest for all things New England sports-centered.  It’s just fun.  And when the air outside can freeze your face in three seconds, there’s not a chance in hell I’m going sledding or even out to run the dog around the field.  No, thank you.

I’m going to slap on some sweatpants, hunker down and scream my head off at the television like any self-respecting Patriots fan today.  Join me?  Plenty of nachos to share!  If not, I hope you’re screaming for them wherever you are, and I hope it carries them to the Superbowl.  Because I do NOT want Sunday football to end.  Ever. Amen.