I hesitate to post something because I don't want the lovely yellow pictures to move down out of view. But such is the world. We all know those yellow leaves are transient by their very definition!

On my desk sits a lovely basket full of freshly baked (ok, last night) Butter Pecan Banana Muffins. They are draped with a country quilt style cloth napkin Mom gave me for Christmas a few years back. I brought them in for the bi-weekly GIS Technical Group meeting this morning for which I am the facilitator. Oh, did I mention the muffins are dusted with confectioner's sugar? I know how some of you enjoy my food talk. ;o)

This is the first time I've baked these particular muffins. While in Virginia, I picked up two new lovely cookbooks, one is all about cupcakes (and muffins) and the other is all about cookies. Fun, fun... something to do on those loooooonnnnnnggggg winter nights.

Speaking of winter nights, I found a website which lists the times of sunrises and sunsets for any given location. http://www.sunrisesunset.com/ According to this, our shortest daylight hours will be (of course) around the winter solstice in December with sunrise at about 10:30 and sunset about 3:15. Not sure exactly what that means. Because according to the site, our sun should already have risen this morning (it's almost 8:30am) but it's still pretty darn dark out there. Maybe it's the clouds... Yeah, that's probably it. Hmmmm.

As luck would have it, I'm in charge of the Section Meeting for December. I'm hoping to do something with the concept of the Messenger Feast. This is a celebration held by native alaskans in the dead of winter to keep things festive amongst the villages. If you're interested, you might look it up. I find that sort of thing fascinating, but I realize I may be just odd.