Goals For 2026

Well folks, it's time to start thinking about making New Year's resolutions! 

Geez, I dislike that phrase! Resolutions? They are made and then promptly forgotten. 

                            I say we ''Set Goals" instead.

Goals keep us focused, on task, and gives us such satisfaction at their completion.

                             Here's my Goals for 2026

1. Finish that book I am writing and get it published. I'm about half-way through when I just quit! So onward, I go!

2. Exercise more. I've never liked exercise but I know I need it now more than ever. So, onward I go with that goal as well.

3. Learn something new each week. Anything from a new word to a new skill. Learning keeps us young and connected. 

4. Finish reading the Bible from cover to cover. I am almost there.

                            What are your Goals For 2026? 

That's It, Folks!!

 Christmas is gone... for most people. 

For me, alone on Christmas Day, I just pretended it was not a holiday. It was just Thursday!! 

Our Christmas will be celebrated on Jan. 3rd. Shirley says she's sure she will feel up to it. She's getting better every day now.

So, I got up, said 'Merry Christmas' to myself. Fixed me some breakfast then I dragged out my watercolors. I figured painting was a good way to kill some time. 

Well, that's done!

Hmmmm.... it's not even 1 p.m. what shall I do with the rest of my day?

I turned on Netflix and started watching 'It's All Her Fault' and let me tell you... I was hooked. I sat there all afternoon, one segment after the other. You know they always leave a 'hanger' at the end of each one so Yes, I just kept watching and wondering who did it. Story was about a 5 year old boy who was kidnapped. And, just when you think you've got it all figured out, it takes off in another direction.

So, I'm sitting there on the edge of my seat, popping one chocolate truffle into my mouth after another. A friend gifted me those truffles. They are from Trader Joe's and oh, my... well, anyway, they were good company while I watched tv... until they were gone! 

So,  that's how my Christmas went and that was alright. Different,  a challenge maybe but we all need to shake up our mundane routine from time to time and Shirley's flue really did a bunch of shaking around here. 

It's just amazing how content you can be with the more simple things in life as you age. And, as old as I am.... I am pretty content. hehe. 

Christmas Eve

 On a good note:

Daughter Shirley is home from the hospital but is still very sick. She is the only child I have living near me and now that she is quarantined and doesn't feel up to visitors or should she be having any, this is the first Christmas I will ever spend alone in my entire life. Why don't you all come over and visit.... I'd love that. 

Christmas Cheer

 You girls are amazing! As I read the comments on my 'ice cube' post, I felt heard, understood, supported. It felt soooo good! Thank you all for that!

A quick note: dau. shirley is in the hospital with the flu. For goodness sakes, you all be careful and don't catch that awful stuff. Since our Christmas festivities are centered around Shirley's household and family we will not be waking up on Christmas morning to gifts and hot chocolate and family and fun. It will all be postponed until she is up to it. 

The other day (when she was well and perky) Shirley hosted our Christmas Cookie Decorating get-together downstairs. Last year we decorated gingerbread houses but this year it was cookies. It was fun. Some of the cookies looked like 'store bought'.... some looked like they were purchased at a junk yard. hehe. I was sort of proud of mine.

Do you see my Charlie Brown Christmas Tree Cookie?

 I hope that each of you stay healthy and that you have the most fabulous Christmas ever! 

The Melting Ice Cube of Life

 As the weeks, months, years go by I can't help to notice the changes that are being made in my life. That's ok. I am not complaining but I do think about this aging process and how it will all end up. 

The other day I made up a little story about how I was feeling. I told my baby daughter... she understood, supported, listened. Same with my son but when I told this story to my daughter Shirley along with 2 of our friends, she and one of the friends just didn't get it... sort of made fun of me. 

So, I decided I'd tell my little story to you and see what kind of reaction I get from you. 

It was a cloudy winter day and a bird was flying high in the sky. He had an ice cube in his talons and suddenly he dropped the ice cube and it fell down to the ground. It landed on the sidewalk.

It was cold so the ice cube just sat there .... for a long, long time. Just being what it was meant to be. 

Then the weather got warmer. The ice cube started to sweat just a little around it's top. After awhile some trickles of water slid down it's sides and after some time puddles began to form on the sidewalk around her. 

She realized that she was smaller, still an ice cube but part of her was not with her anymore so she felt sad. The puddles grew larger and larger as the sun shone brighter and brighter. She knew that one of these days she would only be a puddle.

I am that ice cube. Being dropped from that bird was my birth into this world and I spent years sitting on that sidewalk being me. Now, I see myself diminishing, sweating away lifes time, trickles begin forming around me and I am growing smaller and smaller. 

I thought is was a great analogy but evidently my daughter couldn't see the picture. It is rather nutty, isn't it. But, that was how I was feeling and I am entitled to that. Right? 

Christmas Present. Christmas Past.

 I decorate less and less as the years go on. That's ok. Leave it to the younger ones to expend all that energy to only have to take it down again in a couple/three weeks. 😁

But, on this Sunday morning I will share with you some of my this year decor.

But, in years past I went all out!! And, yes, I did have to take it all down after Christmas was over! 

So..... time to sit back and just enjoy my time and not work so hard to make it all happen. 

75th Anniversary

 My my how time flies! 

Yesterday I celebrated my 75th wedding anniversary. Alone but yet I celebrated the wonderful day that my marriage to Elbert began. He's been gone 14 years now and the pain of loss lingers on. 

We were just kids - me 16, him 20. Didn't know our head from a hole in the ground! But, we loved, we learned, we perserved, we survived and we thrived. And, what a journey it was! I wouldn't have traded it anything else in this world. 

At times, yesterday, I felt sad, down in the dumps but I also felt so honored to have spent all those 60 years and 3 weeks with him by my side. 

My Elf In The Snow

                                                                We Got Snow!!

The first of the year here at the Commons at Centerbrooke. It was beginning to stick late in the afternoon and by the time I went to bed we had a couple inches. 

While I lay slumbering in my bed, all cozy and warm.... my Elf On A Shelf got off his shelf and sneaked outside. He had a fabulous time in the snow! 

I'm gonna have to keep my eye on that fellow!! No telling what he'll get into next! 

Living Our Best Lives

 Yesterday set the mood...

Shirley and I attended a performance of 'The Nutcracker' at our local art center. Local talent, all but the sugar plum fairy, whom they imported. haha

It was such a delightful event. I hadn't seen that dance since my granddaughter danced in a performance how many years ago!! She has a grown son now so it was awhile. 

A little 5 year old sat next to me. The place was sold out so Mommy had to sit just behind her. She was quite nervous about it all to begin with and then that child got so caught up in all the excitement of the Nutcracker and the little mice and so on. Pretty soon her body was pressed up against my arm. It did my soul good to see all of that through a child's eye again. I loved it. 

So, on to other things. 

My college football team (Alabama) played like junior high kids on Saturday and lost the SEC championship. I turned off the tv at halftime. So, here's  what I did instead.....

I'm pretty old. And, I have had a pretty good attitude about growing old,  I think. I have spent some time over the last years discovering who I was and what I was supposed to do with these last remaining years. I regularly get comments from others that I inspire them. I don't know about that. I am just being me but it has been a dream of mine to set an example for  others. And to leave a legacy for my children and grandchildren. 

I see so many older ones that just sit around waiting to die, no interest in anything, constantly complaning about everything, making themselves and everyone around them miserable. I decided a while ago that I was not going to be that person, nor was I going to be around people who are constantly negative. 

So, on Saturday afternoon instead of watching my football team lose a game, I set up a facebook group for us older women. It's open to anyone of a 'certain age'. I have 20 members so far and I hope it grows. I want us women to be there for each other, to support each other

My blog is so dear to my heart. I have made so many wonderful friends here and sure want to keep them close to me forever. I won't give that up but, I just wanted to do something a little different as well as keeping my blog going.  This woman must have tooooo much time on her hands. haha

If you are interested in joining, go to facebook and look us up. We'd love to have you. 

Who Likes Fruitcake?

 Just before Thanksgiving I received a package delivered to my front door. 

                      It was a fruit cake I had ordered. 

I had made fruitcake over the years, I'd bought the Claxton slices in the grocery store, I'd ordered them from online but they just weren't all that good.

However.... what's Christmas without fruitcake, right?

I saw an advertisement for this fruitcake and decided to try it. It's made by the monks at Assumption Abbey in Missouri. I was not disappointed at all. That cake is  GONE. I've ordered another one. 

Let me tell you a little about the monks who make these cakes. Monks ordinarily make their living by farming or having a dairy. But, the monks in Missouri are on poor land and they had to find some other way to get some cash flow. Ta Da.... they'd make fruitcakes.

A famous chef helped them get started and the monks have been doing this for years now. They just bake, bake, bake... the cakes are injected with rum and let set to 'ripen'. Not anything like any fruitcake I've been had. 

Just thought I'd share that little tidbit with you... just in case you like fruitcake!