Whew! It's been a long week where I have just started getting back into my groove after our round-the-world journey. The most jarring part of coming home from India was the sharp drop in temperature and available daylight. The sunlight in the North at this time of year is thin and stretched, like the rays are exhausted from having to climb all the way to our distant northern hemisphere.

My body is doing this weird thing where it is actually can't-keep-my-eyes-open tired by 10 pm and waking up on it's own anywhere between 5:30 and 6 a.m. For a dyed-in-the-feathers Night Owl like me, it's awkward. I mean, what do I do at 6 a.m. when the whole family is sleeping? I don't want to wake them up, right? (One morning, I woke up at 4:30! I got up and worked on my book, so, I'm not completely lost in this new world of "waking up in the dark.")

It is most definitely winter here in northern Alberta, with snow and dark--so much dark--and fires in the woodstove and hoar frost on the trees. As I type this at 8:48 am it is grey and chilly-looking outside. In an hour, it will be slightly brighter, like when I took this photo yesterday--the window was completely covered in plumes of frost. It made me so glad that the little mint cutting I took from the garden two months ago is thriving, even if it looks like something from "Where the Wild Things Are."

I guess if it took over my kitchen and turned it into a sub-tropical island, I wouldn't complain. Even if there were a few monsters to deal with.

I hope your weekend is filled with sunshine, friends. What do you have to be thankful for today?