Hi Dear friends

I had a wonderful Christmas, spoiled rotten by my hubby and my sons. The lads got together and got me a radar detector as they know I like to put the pedal to the metal. I think they all inherited my heavy foot I'm on the highway every day to meet up with my car pool in the adjacent town to drive the half hour to work. It gets so tedious driving every day, especially when you leave home in the dark and return home in the dark (by the time I hit the city again). But I'm grateful to have a good-paying job, even though I long to retire and write full-time and supplement my income by selling jewellery until I hit it big on the New York Times bestseller list

Let's see, what else did I get?  Two of my favorite fragrances: Oscar da la Renta and White Diamonds, a gorgeous sparkling Swarovski crystal rose that will have to be kept safe and dust-free in the curio cabinet. I love crystal....anything that sparkles, especially diamonds Hey I'm not named Elizabeth for nothing....Elizabeth I, Elizabeth II, Elizabeth Taylor, they all have had and still do have their share of the sparkly jewels .  Two watches to add to my watch collection (one of them came with White Diamonds perfume) and I'm still hoping to get my "butterfly" watch in the new year. Love my fibre optics church that I fell in love with visiting my favorite Christmas store in Calgary in November. Hubby bought it for me but I wasn't allowed to "have" it until Christmas.  And of course, my favorite flowers: roses that grace the coffee table.  A friend had a curving mirror made for my village, which I love so much I can't pack it away. My village is growing, and has never been put away in 15 years.

I was selling candles and ornaments for Lund's Lites back in the late 1980's (out of Seattle and since gone out of business) when the company introduced houses. I started off with three pieces that every village has: a church, a schoolhouse and a house) and this has now grown to fifteen pieces, too small for my card table. The lads will have to build me something bigger, soon. And big enough so I can have an electric train chugging along.  Have always loved train sets. Perhaps in another life I was a boy...or a train engineer????

If you ever get to go to Holland, you must visit Madurodam in Den Haag.  It's a miniature city, complete with autobahn (highway) even an accident with police cars and sirens, an airport with to-scale airplanes, some taxing on the runways, and a fantastic harbor with all kinds of miniature ships.

But if you go to Holland, go in mid-April, when the fields are bursting with colour: rows of daffodils, by color, and the fragrance of hyacinth haunts me to this day. Go to the flower parade in Lisse, a lot like California's Parade of Roses, except these are the spring flowers, tulips, daffodils, hyacinthe. The fragrance is incredible. I hope hubby and I can go back to Holland one spring.

We had no snow for Christmas, but a blizzard blew in overnight of the 27th so looks like we'll have a white New Year's. The twins, Danny and Robby, beat the storm back to Calgary and Chris didn't leave until the 29th, when the highway was again clear and dry. My fourth son, Nicky lives here in town.

JJ, I need more help in working on myspace, I'm so totally technically challenged.

I'm going to spend a lazy Saturday afternoon, lay down on the sofa, Christmas tree lights twinkling, Christmas music on the stereo, cuddle under a blanket and immerse myself in DeborahAnne's Invasion of Falgannon, a delightful story by a gifted writer.

I keep forgetting to blog, so in case I don't get back here in the next two days (because I'm held hostage in Falgannon) I wish you all a wonderul New Year's Eve celebration and may you be surrounded by health and wealth and your dreams come true in 2007.

Happy New Year, with love....

Elizabeth