So, I am not going to start this letter by telling you how wonderful the past year was. It was pretty spectacular. Instead, I think in these serious times we need to ask ourselves a serious question: As of the date you have received this letter, how much Eggnog (the real stuff, not that commie-light-less-fat stuff) have you consumed? I am talking straight Eggnog; please do not count any additions of an alcoholic nature. The reason for this question is I can not find any at the local store. Apparently someone is drinking my allotment (4 gallons) or there is has been a gross underestimate by the Eggnog industry as to this year’s demand. I knew I should have bought some of the canned stuff last March.

The biggest news is we have is a new member of the family. No, not a kid; we are a little old for that and besides, I do not like sharing my toys. Instead we got another dog. His name is Shepherd Book, Book for short, and no, I did not pick the name, he is named after a character from the TV show Firefly. Oddly, our other dog, Zoe, is named after a character from the same TV show series. I am starting to see a trend here. I wanted to go with “Hilts”, the coolest character in the movie The Great Escape, played by Steve McQueen, but was overruled. Again, I am starting to see a trend here.

Anyway, he was one of eleven puppies found in some wackadooddle hoarder’s house. The entire litter was malnourished. So we picked one and began the lovely process of getting him healthy, house trained, etc. We did a DNA test on him, and he is 55% German Shepherd, 25% Pit Bull (that made me a bit nervous), and 20% American Staffordshire Terrier (Think Spuds Mackenzie dog from the 80s beer commercials or General Patton’s dog in real life). He looks like a collection of various dog breed parts and weighs about 50 pounds. A solid 50 pounds. He must work out at night. He gets along with other dogs, loves to play and keeps the neighbor’s 120 pound Bouvier des Flandres busy. He has amazing navigation skills; we thought we had lost him on two different hikes. On one he made it back to the truck long before we did, a mile from where we last saw him, and the other time he found the trail and then found us. We have a tracker on him now, just in case. I do not think Zoe is too thrilled to have another dog, but she tolerates him, even though occasionally she has to put him in his place.

The biggest piece of news concerning me is I bought a new snowboard. So of course, we currently have very little snow. If you have any chickens or goats you can spare, please sacrifice them to the snow Gods, as soon as possible, preferably at midnight while dancing around a bonfire naked. We need snow—all of my fans can not wait and they write me letters and tell me I am great (Shoutout to Joe Walsh for all of you 70s Rockers.) I have videos to make and post on Youtube. Videos can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/@theamazingsleepingman I have not posted any from this year due to the above mentioned lack of snow. In case you are wondering, that is not really me in the avatar on the homepage. It is one of the main characters in Anne Marie’s Lightwave book series. The artist did say I was her inspiration… to find a better model.

So to answer your obvious question, Anne Marie is still busy writing books. Gratuitous plug for her books: https://www.amscottwrites.com/ Sign up for her newsletter and get a free story. Just ask us for a sticker, too.

She is also branching out from space opera stories into romance suspense. Do any of you know anyone at the Hallmark Channel?

(Note from AM: Different newsletters and free books for sci-fi and romantic suspense–make sure you sign up for the right one! See the tabs at the top.)

Anne constantly comes to me asking for romantic inputs, because it is well known what a romantic guy I am. For example, I proposed over the phone, and no, we were not in different countries at the time. We were in the same town. But honestly, is this not the first time you have heard of a wedding proposal done this way? Besides, it worked. So stop rolling your eyes at my success.

Anne also continues to be in demand as a chainsaw instructor for Team Rubicon. She teaches several classes a year and also goes on disaster responses. She doesn’t have a speaking role, but you can see her in this video by the Bungie Foundation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYqDOlsqmaw

How good of a sawyer is she, you ask? Well, we had a large tree on our property we needed to drop this year. It had a slight lean bias towards the house, just enough to cause my stomach to feel queasy about dropping it. After several discussions and many measurements, we decided Anne could drop it. Now, this was by far the biggest tree either of us had dropped and we have dropped several over 100 feet. The target drop point was a very narrow area between another big tree and our woodshed. If it hit the big tree it would get hung up and then we would have a two-tree problem or it could hit the woodshed or things could go really sideways and it would come down on the rear porch and the house. (Hello, USAA, we need to make a claim.). Well Anne made a perfect cut and dropped it right between the other big tree and the woodshed. Unfortunately, I do not have any video of it coming down as I was either pounding in wedges trying get the tree to fall or being the safety lookout as Anne cut the last bit to make it fall. I think the hardest part was taking down the fence to make a safe getaway path or putting the fence back up.

We have also extended our record on finishing up the basement bathroom remodel. Twelve years and it is still not done. It is hard to finish something when you really have not started. We do have a paint color picked out. “You Are My Sunshine” yellow, in case you are curious.

Other than that, we went camping, visited relatives, hiked, survived a grizzly bear attack, entered a few motorcycle races; blah blah blah, you get the picture. Standard Montana stuff. Just kidding! We did not race our motorcycles.

If you are interested in our year in pictures, Anne has a bunch on her Instagram accounts. Her accounts have open access so you do not have to be a super-hip person with your own Instagram account to see the photos, but you will see book ads, too, so pick your poison. See here:

Science fiction stuff: https://instagram.com/amscottwrites

Romantic suspense stuff: https://instagram.com/annemscott_author

Hope you have a wonderful Christmas, a Happy New Year, and you enjoy all of the upcoming political TV ads!

The Amazing Sleeping Man, Anne Marie, Zoe and Shepherd Book