In which our heroine begins a new life, and finds it uneventful.

Well, I'm a country girl now. I'm not quite sure I'm ready for this adventure, but I guess you're never really ready for anything; you just have to start. If the digital camera weren't at my aunt's house in Dallas, I'd post pictures of how quiet and rainy it is here - just my sort of weather. Perfect weather for curling up under a quilt and reading Narnia. I gave my parents lots of tea for Christmas, and brought my own as well, so there is no shortage of hot beverages; unfortunately, though, the well water is tasting sort of funny lately, so the tea definitely needs sugar to mask the well water taste. I usually go sugarless, because otherwise how can you taste the tea?

I would just like to announce that I am a very spoiled person. The entire time the folks have been up here, they've been suffering with dial-up internet. About a week before I came up, the satellite finally came through, so I only have to deal with pages that take 30 seconds to load, instead of 3 minutes like it has been up till now. I don't quite appreciate how spoiled I am, though, since 30 seconds is still inexcusably long with any reasonable internet connection. And my dad works in telecom, so we always have stuff long before anybody else does. All the neighbors except two still use dial-up. Yeah, we're in the country. There is no DSL. There is no spoon.

I was planning to start leash-training the fat white cat today, because he's obese and has no muscle at all, and if I can manage to leash-train him he will at least be able to take walks up our driveway, which might be good for a couple of pounds. (In case anybody thinks this is a paltry sort of exercise regimen, you're quite right, but we do live at the back of a very narrow 10 acres, so the driveway is fairly substantial.) But it's rainy and cold today, and I feel like reading Narnia instead of going outside, so the Cat-Drag will have to be postponed till tomorrow. I hope Mr. Fatso appreciates how lucky he is.