So here we are, on the “other” side of the Holiday (relatively speaking). I do not go all out for New Years, anymore; I dare say I’ve gotten over it (well, gotten over the parties, frosty beverages and mornings after wishing I had stayed home the night before). Maybe it’s my age (be careful agreeing too quickly, you!) but I find New Years Day spent with family, enjoying a crockpot full of pork roast and sauerkraut on top of a steaming mound of creamy mashed potatoes and a lovely salad far more enticing (again, relatively speaking) than the jello shots (never a favourite, really), the bottles of vodka (more of a favourite, I do confess it, blended nicely with some LifeWater for flavour), and a few cherry bombs for good measure.

Sitting down at table with hearty food, even heartier laughter, with a dessert course of left over sweet treats from Christmas and an afternoon spent in frivolity playing games or cards (yep, I’m showing my age!) is my idea of properly bringing in the New Year. Oh to be sure, a trip to my favourite Isle across the pond would trump any such day, beyond a shadow of a doubt, but that has yet to happen, so I’ll keep it (more or less) real.

I’m a word game person, naturally, and, if truth be told, somewhat unfortunately, since I, admittedly, generally end up winning these games (Balderdash being my all time, number one pick for a great party game) (you know, the game where you get an obscure word from the dictionary and then have to make up a definition for it to win points and, sooner or later, the game) which, then, no one wants to play anymore because I’ve won the last five rounds. (it’s rather like trying to enjoy a murder mystery weekend with Sherlock, NO fun!) It’s a double-edged sword, this word-mongery!

By this point, you are, no doubt, beginning to wonder where I’m going with this post. That would make two of us! Nope, honest and true, I promise, I have no idea what I’m talking about…er, that is, I have no particular point or direction in which I am going; just sojourning (along with you, apparently) (My apologies, I think) through the vast wilderness of words that lies like a frontier before us, waiting to be explored, ever beckoning (rather like those New Years Eve beverages I’m trying to elude!)

Being a Word-Monger, I am entirely capable of prattling on, pointlessly, seemingly without end (a fact of which, I am quite sure, you are already very well aware). This continuous flow of words takes me (and you along with me) here, there and anywhere. From the hum-drum to the fantastical; from the nearby (like Cape May, NJ) to the far, far away (like the Village of Hwyndarin in my own made up world of Feyfolk); from the evocative to the entirely inconsequential, these words create a river upon which I willingly drift, day in, day out.

As Del Griffith so eloquently put it, (John Candy’s legendary and immortal bumpkin in the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles) “I just go with the flow, like a twig on the shoulders of a mighty river.” Yet, being this word-monger, (or perhaps, after greater consideration, the phrase wordsmith might make a bit more sense) (but since I’m more enamored with Word Monger, I’m staying with that) (where was I?), the river is one of my own creating, as well as the boat, and the places to which I travel. The people I meet are crafted from my own imagination, to be as interesting, sophisticated, beautiful, ridiculous or unmemorable as I so desire and the adventures I have are as exhilarating, terrifying, and/or heart-warming as I care for them to be.

It is a marvelous thing to be Blessed with such an expansive and, seemingly, never-ending imagination; I rarely get bored; I seldom have little to talk about (again, that’s a double-edged sword!) and I can always close my eyes and fill my thoughts (not to mention my blog) with magical notions that seem to be appreciated as much by you (since you are still here reading and, as far as I can tell, do not [yet] have that puzzled expression on your face) as by me. Being inclined in a verbose nature, or gifted with expression, or perhaps you might say Quietness Challenged, is as intoxicating to me as any of those New Years Eve enticements and far more lasting….

But when people are trying to beat me at a word game, being a Word Monger with a vast repertoire of colourful words and phrases isn’t, necessarily, quite as appreciated. 🙂

Wishing you ALL a Delightful and Rewarding 2017 filled with a similar Blessing of words, phrases, characters, plots, musings, verses, and lyrical Magic!

~Morgan~
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Beautiful Original Artwork by: Dary Frakes