We’re in the middle of January and here in Oklahoma it means the middle of the coldest part of the year. I’m not a fan of wintry weather. I normally just hunker down and get through it. Today I may bake bread. I got a present with some bread mixes for Christmas, and I will make good use of it. It will be warm and inviting with Italian food tonight. But the sun is shining, and the thermometer is above freezing this morning. More frigid weather is on the horizon.

There’s been a lot of illness and death in my small circle of friends and family lately. I blame winter. It should be sunny and 70 degrees year-round. But we wouldn’t be thankful for life if it were always perfect. We need some good to go with the bad.

I am in the edit phase of the final Sandhill Island novel—Smugglers of Sandhill Island. I expect a galley to review this week. I haven’t seen the cover yet but when I do, I’ll show it to you! Next on the horizon is a novel set at another lake in Oklahoma. A Home Among the Sand Plums is about half finished and has to do with a lonely woman who takes in a child who needs a home only to find herself immersed in a life she could only imagine. The disappearance of Indigenous women has become epidemic of late, and it is in every corner of the world, not just Oklahoma.

So, I think I’ll get out in the sunshine today and bake that bread. I need to carve out some writing time, but next week the weather will be brutal again. And I have a funeral. Now the snow is melting and for that I am thankful.

What are you thankful for this week? And what are you reading, writing, or creating?