The trip home to New Mexico was grand and rejuvinating. I cooked for 3 solid days in preparations for the feast. I ripped through over 5 pounds of butter to feed 23 people a down home EVERY LAST THING from scratch Christmas Dinner. Corazon bought me an amazing bread bible off my Amazon wish list. I spent long stretches of time reading and soaking it in. It's very technical, but retains a grounded warmth in the authors childhood memories of the fellowship of shared loaves.

I didn't become the shutterbug I normally am when I travel to the land of enchantment until late in the trip. I followed my brother home in the last couple of days of my trip to the hauntingly beautiful Estancia Llano. We broke layers of ice on the watering holes so the longhorns could drink their fill, ate at Turk's Roadhouse, where the food is deep and soulful, as if from the magical hands of a 90 year old italian grandma, talked books with my Neice like only two bookworms can, and explored dried salt flats in the literal middle of no where. These are a few of my favorite pictures from the trip.

New Years was relaxing, and intimately romantic. It's days like those that keep my grounded in the fact that our relationship is worth it's weight in all that is precious.

Yesterday was full of instability, then inward growth. Thanks Mal and Corazon for pulling me through it. I started looking for a councilor, seriously, yesterday. I was a bit disconcerted when I asked my insurance company if they had any councilors in my service provider groups that have art therapy certification and they didn't even know what I was talking about. I explained that there names would be followed by the designation letters of ATR or possibly ATR.BC. They told me that their service provider list doesn't have letters following the Dr's name and they would have no way of knowing. Weird. I want drugs and counciling. :)