Hello, it's me, Lily, a frog who lives in a pond and loves to tell stories.

I've been asleep all year since 2020 to begin.

When my pond starts to freeze, I burrow deep into the mud under the water, under the ice.

That's my home.

I live in a nice bubble, deep down in the mud and as everything turns to ice all around me, I sleep.

It's because I'm a boreal course frog.

We need to hibernate when it's cold.

And resting is good for me.

I rest so that when I wake up, I'm even better than before.

The last thing I remember before falling asleep for the winter was watching the fire in my fireplace.

And I was sipping a warm cup of natty with honey in it.

And I was wrapping a fuzzy blanket around my feet.

And then the book I was holding began to seem really heavy in my froggy hands.

That's it. That's a hotly remember.

But something woke me up just now.

It was a plunking sound.

It was a sound like...

And it just kept happening...

...until I woke up all the way.

And then I saw that my fire had gone out and realized I had been sleeping for...

I don't know how long.

And there was a pile of hazelnuts in my fireplace.

...