This is the anniversary of my first official date with Banjo Man.  In 1970.

It is also the anniversary of selling my very first piece of writing.  In 1986.

And the day I received my first check from my book publisher.  In 1987.

January 12th.

My lucky day.

So what’s going to happen today, you ask?

Good question.

Since we’re still recovering from the Texas Virus That Lasts Forever, we are not going out for a romantic dinner.

And I am not cooking a romantic dinner.

But…I think we’re going to town to buy a new dishwasher!   Our old one broke a month ago and we’re tired of washing dishes.  Yes, I know that having to wash dishes by hand is not a real hardship, but we’re tired of it anyway.

So far I’m not really crazy about January.  The cyclone bomb blizzard, the Arctic Freeze, the Texas Virus and the non-delivery of propane to heat the house (we had to wait a long, cold week, along with the rest of the state, and stay in our offices with portable electric heaters)?  And that’s only the first twelve days!

I started to write a blog post five days ago only to discover my computer was updating some major Windows programs.  When it was over, my Start button no longer worked and my Edge browser–and the easy way to get to my photos for the blog–was gone.  Four hours of intense computer manipulations resulted in…nothing.  Except a headache and the urge to toss the laptop out the window into the snow.

I am hoping that the little repair in town can fix this.  Microsoft is certainly no help.

We are supposed to get a lot of rain tonight.  The kind of rain that, if blocked by the piles of snow around the house, will flood basements.  Ah, yes, something else to look forward to.

But because it’s my lucky day, I’m not the least bit worried.