Happy New Year, all...

New job is going well. Yesterday was Friday the 13th (and a full moon), but the atmosphere is a little less superstitious at my new workplace than it was at the birth center. The only thing that you could say went wrong was that everyone showed up for their appointments, plus we had three people to add in. And we usually have a pretty high no show rate, and schedule accordingly, so we could have gotten really behind, but we cranked on through and got out on time. I actually got to leave before sundown -- it was nearly 60 degrees out, and sunny for the third day in a row. That's all gone today, we're back to snow and wind and cold.

One of the benefits of the new job is that, now that I'm sleeping at night, I don't fall asleep while driving home anymore (I'm telling you, it was just a matter of time before my luck would have run out). But I find myself getting distracted on the long ride home, especially on beautiful days like yesterday

by kids in shorts playing touch football in a side yard heading out of town...

...people sitting out on porch steps, deep in conversation (and I can't help but wonder what they're talking about, it looks serious)...

...a black cat crouched still at the edge of the tall grass in a field, watching, waiting for motion...

and the full moon rising over stubbly fields, with the sun not yet set. The sky, still blue, filling in the shadows of the moon's craters with the same deepening shade of blue.

It was all quite lovely.