Ah, the Winter Holidays! The top of the year. Kind of like a great big Wednesday, and then, after the Big Cleanup of Winter, we get to slide down the hill of Spring into the sleepy summer. Well, at least around here in hot and humid North Carolina it's sleepy--hammock style. It's hang out on the front porch picking' in the cool evening. But don't get bug repellent on your fiddle/banjo/mandolin, etc. Eats holes in the finish. I know, because one of my fiddles has a nice smear in the top varnish from DEET :( Anyway, it's not summer yet, except for those of you who live in the Southern Hemisphere. I can't get used to the idea of celebrating the Winter Holidays in the summer, any more than you can imagine celebrating them in the cold. I hope everybody is staying healthy this winter. My grandfather of blessed memory used to say, "If you don't have your health, you don't have anything." I heartily agree with him. But I know that many of you are struggling with illness, whether acute or chronic, and for you I wish a speedy recovery, from the bottom of my heart! Speaking of health, my CD #2 has been delayed because I broke my right wrist while getting healed at an Ayurvedic hospital in Tamil Nadu, South India. In the course of the fracture healing, my all-important-for-banjo-playing thumb got stuck between two pieces of bone, requiring surgery to get it out. The surgery caused pressure on the other 4 tendons on the back of my hand. Bummer. But a steroid injection that I had two weeks ago seems to be working to get rid of the swelling, so I hope to get back to playing just as soon as I gain confidence that this is not a passing improvement. Take care, y'all, enjoy the parts that make you smile, and learn from everything else. Wishing you all the best this Holiday season and forever, Laura --for any of you who might not have received my last email, my CD "Pretty Little Dog" is on sale at CDBaby for 50% off of everything--physical copies, digital album downloads, and digital MP3 single tracks! If you didn't receive any of my stuff for Hanukah/Christmas/Yule/Kwanzaa/Winter Solstice, hurry over to cdbaby.com/cd/laurapschulman and pick up a copy for yourself, and a couple for those people on your list you didn't get to, or want to surprise with something new and different...you know what I mean.