Thank you, Lord, for this day. May it be used for your glory!
Good morning and welcome to another Thursday update! Happy New Year! It’s 2022, isn’t that crazy?
I think I mentioned last time I would finish up our Christmas adventures. I’ll stick to my word, and perhaps give another update on Spatium and some of the other goals I have for this newsletter in the coming year.
We’ll just see how it goes. I don’t want to make it too too long either.
I will be giving some more dedicated Spatium updates soon if you still don’t understand it :)
Let’s see…where were we?
I told y’all Tay and I had like 4 Christmases and that it all started with emergency surgery for Merlin.
That leaves us on the Monday before Christmas. We had a sick puppy with a giant cone on his head and the newly learned skill of baking a bruche de noel and homemade 3-cheese ravioli.
Christmas #1
Monday morningish we drove to Georgia. We had to make a pitstop in Greensboro to drop the cat off so she wouldn’t be totally alone for 2 weeks. But then after that we were on the road!
For like 7 hours because for some reason Interstate 85 always likes to turn a 5-hour drive into 7.
Side note, Merlin hated the cone on his head. He was very uncoordinated and within a week it was fully cracked and slightly chewed on. However, there was one other that hated the cone even more than Merlin.
Lucy.
The cone scared the living daylights out of Lucy! Everytime Merlin would bump into her with the cone she would snap at him and freak him out.
So that was fun.
We figured since Merlin had just had surgery and wasn’t allowed to be active, it wasn’t a good idea to have them sit with each other and fight for 7 hours.
So Lucy got promoted to the front seat where the no-seatbelt siren went off relentlessly and Taylor snuggled in the back seat with Merlin.
We got to Georgia that night and from there it was non-stop festivities and visits. We got to make homemade ravioli for my aunt and uncle, who Taylor had never met before. That was a ton of fun! And also a huge success! We were very fortunate we could replicate the ravioli from our cooking class.
We also got to visit with some good friends who we hadn’t seen in a long time.
Our Georgia family traditions got brought forwards 2 days, which we greatly appreciate :)
That means the Georgia “Christmas Eve” was actually the 22nd and “Christmas” was the 23rd.
The reason being was that Tay and I needed to board the dogs Christmas Eve in Greensboro. And we had to do it by noon.
That leads us to Christmas #2.
Christmas #2
So, 1 Christmas is done, we had a wonderful time, played lots of Christmas games, ate good food, and got some fun White Elephant gifts too!
We woke up at like 5 am Christmas Eve, drove a few hours (going north on 85 is always quicker for some reason), dropped the dogs off at the border, and made it to the Bradsher household in time for brunch!
Tay’s family traditions definitely have more moving around than I am used to, but it turned out to be thoroughly enjoyable! As a kid I always liked just staying home all day on Christmas, lounging in my PJs, never having to go anywhere. If I got a video game for Christmas, I could just play it all day and eat delicious leftovers for lunch and dinner.
It was awesome! As a kid…
As an adult, however, that’s not quite as enjoyable. It’s actually more fun to see family and spend quality time traveling around to different friends and relatives.
I feel so old saying that, but it is true nonetheless.
So on Christmas Eve, all the Bradsher extended family came over, we went to church for a Christmas Eve service, and then had a delicious dinner followed by presents.
It was a wonderful time and so great to see all the aunts, uncles, and cousins!
So technically, this was just Christmas Eve, but I’m still counting it as Christmas #2 because it involved a totally new set of relatives and a new set of gift-giving.
So that leads us to Christmas #3
Christmas #3
Our third Christmas of the year took place on actual Christmas day. It was the Bradsher immediate family Christmas morning festivities.
It started with some more gift exchanges between Tay and me and then of course some coffee.
We then went downstairs to see that Santa had indeed visited all of us, and he even gave each of us our very own wrapping paper to easily distinguish gifts. He was also kind enough to put all our own presents on our spots on the sofas; how considerate! Santa brought Tay and me a couple of joint gifts and he actually combined our wrapping papers together, haha!
Nice touch, Santa!
After exchanging gifts with everyone we moved on to breakfast where I got to experience my very first Moravian sugar cake from Dewey’s!
I have never heard of Dewey’s until I met Taylor, but it is a marvelous little shop. I’ve actually never heard of a seasonal Christmas store at all. Halloween costume stores? Sure! Seasonal firework places? Absolutely! But Christmas? Never.
It was delicious! As was the casserole and everything else!
After a wonderful Christmas morning, we packed, changed, and got ready for Christmas #4
Christmas #4
Our last and final Christmas took place in a town known to few: Murfreesboro, NC. This is where my mother-in-law’s family lives. I’ve only met them once before actually, so it was a lot of fun to be able to spend a couple of days with the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins!
They are (I think) like an hour or so from the Outer Banks in the middle of some flat country fields.
It’s so peaceful out there. No chaos; just fields, cotton, and hunting deer. For relaxing, you can ride around on the side by side or sit out on the carport with a cup of coffee. No city noise, no city fumes, just clean country air straight from the Lord.
All to say, it was a great time.
After driving around everywhere from Georgia back up to North Carolina, and then across the whole state, it was nice that we spent all of the 26th there too. We got some much-needed rest.
Post-Christmas
After Christmas, our travel was not quite over. We went back to Greensboro and spent some time there, saw the new Spiderman, and some great Christmas lights.
Then we finally drove home and got to spend a solid 30 minutes in Durham before jumping in the car again to travel down to Hilton Head for New Year’s!
We spent New Year’s with some dear friends (2 other couples) and are now finally back home.
Almost 2 weeks of traveling around the southeast, but now we are home and ready to kick the New Year off right!
2022 Plan
As far as this newsletter goes, I’m going to do the same thing I’ve been doing. Nothing will change, so don’t worry :)
However, I am adding some things. Here’s what to look out for:
Spatium: this is a project I’m rolling out where I am going to release a brand new short story every month! Once a year I will wrap 10 of those up into a compilation book and publish it for the world.
This is a project I’m rolling out on DeSo in the form of NFTs; however, for those that just want the stories, I am offering one-time payments for all the stories through NFT vaults. These are available on both Solana and DeSo.
Last but not least, for the less tech-savvy, I am also offering a paid subscription to this newsletter where you can get these too!
Later this year, the first-ever Spatium Short Story Compilation will be released!
Later this year, the first-ever photo/poem compilation will be released!
Every week, as you know, I am writing a poem based on one of Tay’s pictures. My goal with those is to create an annual book compilation. Stay tuned!
I am also working on a post-apocalyptic/dystopian novella right now and will keep y’all updated when that is ready to be released.
As always, I appreciate all your support and love you all. Definitely share this newsletter with social media or anyone you think would be interested!