I'm back

I hope you all had a happy holidays. I'm finally back to the blogging world. I had originally intended to start a series on Stones River in late December to coincide with the anniversary of the battle, but that got pushed to the back burner during the busy last few weeks of the year. But I'm back now and will commence that series tomorrow, probably the next dozen or so posts to cover the battle. If you like Stones River then this will be a good January on this blog for you.

I had a good Christmas and New Year's. On Christmas Eve we had dinner with my parents, then met all my wife's family for a get together at a brother's house. On Christmas day we had our parents, and my grandmother, over for presents and a big dinner. There was food for twice as many people as came, in fact I still have a few leftovers. But I love ham so that's not a problem at all.

New Year's Eve we spent with a few of my wife's siblings at a bar. It was a good time, a bit tired by the end of the night but we had a good time. I bet I ate more than I drank, which seems odd. Now that the holidays are over I can try to lose that weight and get back in shape, we'll see, maybe it'll work, maybe it won't.

Among my many Christmas presents were two I wanted to share with you tonight. One is that I got a new laptop, much more modern than my last laptop, or desktop for that matter. It even has a webcam so I could take a picture of me typing this blog, as I'm doing it on my laptop this very moment. The second present is that my wife got me this print:It is "The General's Farewell" by David Wright and depicts Forrest and Cleburne talking outside the Harrison House. Hood and Cheatham are on the porch. Hood has just chewed out these generals again for the Spring Hil affair. In a few hours the battle of Franklin will take place and Cleburne will lose his life leading his men from the front. I own three other Civil War prints, the 6th Mississippi at Shiloh, Cleburne at Chickamauga and Cleburne at Tunnel Hill (unframed). By accident I started a series of Cleburne prints and now it continues by design. The new print already has a place of honor above the fireplace.