Whoa, yeah, hello. It's 2026, do you know where your children are?
For coffee, we have a French Roast from Bridgehead (all their products are fair trade). For teas, we have their organic Assam Breakfast and Imperial Jasmine. Fridge pitchers are washed and refilled with the usual unsweet iced tea and lemonad. Hot chocolate (also fair trade) and mini marshmallows are available, too.
And there's cake!!
And good morning, y'all. Had to dig out yet again. Not a huge accumulation yesterday but we had high winds so there was a drift across the drive right in front of the garage and the plow went through, creating another big drift at the street end. And the drive home last night was not pleasant, though it got better as I moved westward across the city.
Coffee and tea are hot and ready. There's cookies added to the remaining pie and brownies, too.
Quote by WriterGirl
My BiL is having major shoulder surgery New Year’s Eve. The surgeon kindly worked him in since their insurance deductible had been met for the year.
OTOH, ugh to surgery on New Year's Eve.
OTOH, yay for surgeons willing to work around insurance in your system.
With a degree in Classics under my belt and having studied the epic in a course during that program, I am always up for a new film version or adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey. It's a timeless tale of a man trying to get home against incredible odds and challenges. Christopher Nolan directs with Matt Damon as the hero, Anne Hathaway as his long-suffering wife Penelope, and Tom Holland as their son Telemachus along with a raft of other big names in other parts.
There's been some shade thrown at the fact Nolan has his Greek warriors dressed in Hellenic (so 6th-5th century BCE) rather than Mycenaean (c. 14th-12th century BCE) garb but I have my doubts even most ancient Greeks who read The Odyssey actually knew what their Bronze Age ancestors looked like. They probably pictured them as looking contemporary with themselves and that's borne out by vase paintings and other art based on the tales.
Cute casting note: Zendaya appears as the goddess Athene, which gives her some scenes with Tom Holland, who is her romantic partner in real life (and they've worked together in two, soon to be three, Spiderman films as well). I've long thought of her as a good choice for Aphrodite in something but she could make a good Athene, too.
As is her wont, Floor Jansen ended her year by knocking one out of the park. In an appearance on the Dutch holiday Top 2000, she sang a magnificent cover of "Old and Wise" by Alan Parsons Project. It's the closer from APP's 1982 album Eye In The Sky (she was 1 when it came out) and has never been big here but did chart in The Netherlands. Those wordless vocals at the end were a sax solo in the original and she really works wonders with it. As I longtime Alan Parsons fan, I love this performance, probably the best version of the song including the original.
Back to work and back to winter. Blowing snow here. Lovely weather if you're a polar bear, I guess.
Kind of wrestling with the new story. I kind of know where to go and what should happen but putting it together on the page is proving challenging. Hopefully in the new year I'll get it together.
Anyone have cool plans for New Year's Eve or Day?
For coffee, there's Wild Goat St. Drogo. For teas, there's Assam Organic and Yorkshire Gold. Hot chocolate available along with mini marshmallows. Washed the pitchers in the fridge and refilled them with unsweet iced tea and lemonade. Soda stock looks good. Still lots of pie and brownies if you're a mite peckish.
Belated Christmas music. "In The Bleak Mid-Winter" is a song with music by early 20th-century English composer Gustav Holst setting words by poet Christina Rossetti. This arrangement is by tenor and arranger Blake Morgan of the UK choral group Voces8. He sings and plays guitar, joined on vocals by former Voces8 first soprano Andrea Haines. Gorgeous arrangement of one of my favourite religious Christmas songs.
And since we have just passed the Solstice, there's some Wild Goat (formerly Fire-Roasted) Solstice coffee in the coffee pot. For teas, there's Scottish Breakfast and Darjeeling. Pitchers in the fridge are washed and refilled with iced tea and lemonade. Soda stock looks good. There's hot chocolate with mini-marshmallows for those craving that. And there's pie. No reason. Just because pie is yummy. And a plate of our fine brownies.
So I am sitting here in my home office looking out my window at a Japanese maple that now looks like some kind of glass sculpture. It's coated in a fairly heavy layer of ice after we got freezing rain for much of yesterday. Looks pretty as long you don't have to walk on it. I cleared some of my drive yesterday since we had company last night but the rest ain't looking too pretty.
New Year's is looming and I'm thinking my New Year's resolution, as much as I ever make one, is to get more writing done and out, including for here. I've been kind of caught up with writing some longer works but that means my output has dropped. I might target publishing a story a month across all sites that I publish with a focus on here, but we shall see how the year develops. I only had three stories go up on here this year and all were comp entries or came about because of comps. That kind of sucks but I know why it happened. I need to rectify that for sure.
Quote by AnnaMayZing
Hopefully, next year, I will be here a little more with some new stories. take care and best wishes, Anna.
Yay! More Anna! And best wishes to you. Hope you're having a good holiday season.
And to all of you: MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!
One more week until 2026. Have a great holiday season. I've put on fresh coffee and tea and there's lots of our Christmas goodies, though I doubt anyone needs a sugar fix today.
It's Christmas Eve so I thought it a good day to give my best wishes for the season, whatever days you may be celebrating, to the folks of StoriesSpace. We are few but dedicated, it seems. Hoping you and yours have a good Christmas and a Happy New Year when we get there in a week.
Quote by verbal
Talia has never seen the movie
😲 Yeesh, I kind of thought that movie was required viewing for boomers and Gen-X, maybe millennials, too. I've probably seen it twice but not in a very long time.
Good day before the day before Christmas (aka Christmas Eve Eve). Just chillin' and looking at possible vacations for 2026. I am still working on my story but it's kind of stalling. And it's turning out longer than I expected. I had been shooting for something I could get out fairly quickly but it's evolving into another long piece.
I'll refresh the coffee and tea. Here's some seasonal goodies, too.
Quote by WriterGirl
I’m headed to a handbell concert at Dad’s assisted living place. Dad’s in it… the red bell.
Oo, that's an interesting activity for a place like that. A couple churches around here have handbell "choirs" but never thought of it for an LTC (longterm care, as we call them in the healthcare world in Ontario) or retirement home activity.
Writing a new fantasy story. It's set in winter and gets a bit nasty (dismembered corpses appear) so will likely fall under "dark fantasy" genre-wise. It's nominally in the same world as the Chronicles of Tana and Shadows of Tan Maldrin (which also get pretty dark) but I'm avoiding connecting it to those beyond some setting elements.
Coffee and tea are freshened up. How's your weekend going?
Still lots of snow on the ground here but it's not coming as much and we are supposed to be into warmer weather by Christmas Day. So maybe not a white or green Christmas but somewhere in between. Which usually means kind of miserable, to be honest.
I am off work and trying to write. Got a story in mind, but my mood today isn't quite in the right place and I'm not sure where it's going. Still, I'm writing.
Coffee and tea are refreshed. Cold beverages, hot chocolate, and goodies all lookin' good.
How's things this second last weekend of 2025?
