All my thank you notes are in the mail, and I have managed to write a few more pages of my novel...escaping the growing maelstrom of emotions stemming from approaching six months of unemployment and all that means financially and professionally to me. I fear I am growing a bit churlish of late.

Also in the mail is my next health insurance check with the just-announced increase added to the payment. That was a difficult check to write.

I am wondering if I should take down my lights, but they are really one of the few bright spots (pardon the pun) in my life, so I am a bit reluctant to do so. [When is the proper time to take down holiday lights?]

DHL picked up my original laptop this evening. Oh how hard it was to package it up, especially knowing that I will probably never have another wood toned cover since they didn't quite catch on at Dell. It was hard, really hard to let it go, thinking about all the work I accomplished on that machine, all the words I wrote, the dreams I had while using it.

Really, I cannot imagine how writers composed their works before the invention of computers. Pick up a pen, or pencil, to work on a story or article or even a letter and I become a bumbling, fumbling oaf. My thoughts become stilted, and I am wrought with blank-page syndrome. I just cannot compose with said instruments. But place my fingers on a keyboard and magic happens. Characters arise to fill spots I did not yet know I needed oh so perfectly. Personal histories flow forth, action rises and falls, life takes place. Simply put, computers allow access to my heart and mind and soul in a way that pen and paper cannot.

Being able to write whenever or wherever I wanted and to take my photos and design work to share with others on a moment's notice was such a blessing to me when I first got the laptop. And yes, again, it was just so darned beautiful with that cover!

Yet...all things come to an end, do they not? I have been learning that over and over of late. All things. Just because I was not ready for that particular bit of my life to end does not mean that the time was not right for it to happen. I did receive an updated laptop with more memory, a faster duel processor, a widescreen (still not sure about the benefits of feature), a larger hard drive, better built-in speakers, media buttons right on the front of the unit, double the USB ports, and a DVD burner. I ought to be dancing in the streets for such fortune.

Am I being too maudlin about the whole exchange or have I merely become a captious woman?