December seems as good a time as any to start over, so here we go. Coming soon: a new version of my old website, this time focused and polished …and self-hosted. Adventures abound, as well as possibilities that what I feel to be true actually is true: I am in way over my head.

It’s winter outside my window, the time when everything growing sleeps, and the brightest days are the coldest ones. Winter sunshine in the northern Midwest is akin to the brightly-colored insects in nature. Yes, they’re beautiful, but all that color and beauty signals a warning. High atmospheric pressure makes for clear skies and sunshine, but it also brings on the coldest days of the year. Nevertheless, I’m indoors today, so I’m enjoying the sunshine and my well-functioning furnace while my therapy light sits on my desk this morning, unused.

Winter, when everything growing sleeps, and the time of the year when I grow restless, ready for planning, for changes, for a new start. So, in a few days, when my domain changes over, I expect this will be what you see. I’m not certain what will happen with my old WordPress site, but for now, this is where it’ll be happening as I gather my thoughts on teaching, on dreams, on mid-life reinventions, on life in this little town where I’ve settled, on writing and building a community of writers in a small-town Midwestern community, and on helping free the stories that, like the ground asleep under the winter snow, lie hidden in the minds and hearts of my neighbors out here –story keepers, if not yet story tellers.

So, here for the next few weeks I’ll be tinkering and adjusting, uploading and reading, writing and learning. Stick around –it can only get better from here.