Gonna kiss another year goodbye!

 Thanksgiving is over.  Don't remember what, where, or if I ate, but I am sure I did.  For the most part 2020 sucked.  There was the covid most of the year which pretty well kept us all isolated.  Well, it kept those of us who believed that it was more than the flu off the streets and out of the stores and restaurants.  And then when I lost my dear Anthony to a disease that didn't exist, I pretty much gave up.  

I do want to thank the friends who knew and who cared for standing behind me and keeping me from falling.  And to those of you who did not know, it is best that way.  I never was one to air my laundry as mother used to say.  It is water under the bridge and you know how that goes!  When the water flows under the bridge, it is gone.  Never going to see that water again.  Off to the sea, or into a reservoir some where and flushed down the shitter.  Gone.

OMG!  Today is Saturday.  I thought it was Friday.  Good thing I looked at the calendar.  The worst thing about isolation is that I never know for sure what day it is.  I am going to Fowler to spend the night with a friend on Sunday.  I will spend the night because I do not want to drive home in the dark.  If Shirley was still alive, I could stop and see her, but she isn't.  But, I am supposed to make Tiramisu and I planned on making it on Saturday, but that was when I thought Saturday was tomorrow.

So that last paragraph  has nothing to do with anything.  It is just more of my ramblings that were leading to what is really in my little head this morning.  So, here we go.  I am going to make my list of New Years Eve resolutions sometime this week.  I know I am going to do this because every year I do.

I write them down on paper, because that makes them real and I may forget what they were.  Let me rephrase that: I WILL forget what they are.  I have yet to fulfill one of the lists, so I really do not know why I bother, but hope springs eternal in the human breast.  (I read that some where.) So here it comes:

1.  This one used to be "quit smoking", but one day I just got up and never smoked again.  I am not sure what year that even was.  Seems like it was in the Spring.  Cathy knows because she quit then also.  So I will change this one to  "Drink more water."

2.  Take a walk every day.  Well, maybe every other day.  Let's get real here: Take a walk when the sun is shining and it is between 75 and 85 degrees and Jiraiya is here to keep me company.  There.  That should do.

3.  Keep the house clean.  Change that one to: Make sure the front and back doors are clear of debris in case the house catches on fire from internal combustion from the grease on the stove from the healthy diet I never followed from the last New Years Day resolution list I made.

4.  Call my friends more often even though they depress me when they tell me what they have been doing while I was setting home feeling sorry for myself.

So, hell with this.  I am never going to change.  Life sucks so I might as well get used to it. I still have 5 days to make my list so expect a revision on this list.  For now, I am going to just hit the publish button up on top and probably go eat a cinnamon roll.  

Remember what momma told me; "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."  And I do have good intentions.

Front sight is 2020!

It used to be that hind sight was 2020, but now when the clock strikes midnight we will be looking forward to 2020!  Well, some of us a little more than the rest of us.  I have made this leap 77 times and I find it is not luck, or whether I ate Black-eyed Peas or not, but more just a luck of the draw.  Before I found out I had to eat Black-eyed Peas in order to secure my good luck for the coming year, I had pretty good luck.  Then I started eating them and my luck stayed the same.  Could it be an old wives tale?

And speaking of old wives tales, the grandmothers were full of them.  I tend to think of them more as wise tales as opposed to the wives tales.  Here are a few for your consideration.

"Where spider web grows, no beau ever goes."
"Once bit, twice shy."
"Broken mirror brings 7 years of bad luck."
"Step on a crack; break your mothers back."
"Any thing that can go wrong, will go wrong."  (This is called Murphy's Law.)
"Spill salt you have to pick it up and throw it over your shoulder to ward off the bad luck"
"13 is an unlucky number."
"A black cat crossing your path is bad luck."
"Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning."
"Red sky at night, sailor's delight."

This list goes on and on, and I am pretty sure that I violated every one of them!  And yet here I am, alive and well and facing another year.  But, you know what?  Life is good.  Where there is life there is hope.  My momma told me that and I have lived by that my whole life.  My life has had it's ups and downs, but I would not change one single thing about it!

This is my take on life: Every man I married and every man I did not marry, was for a reason.  I learned something from everyone of them.  Some of the lessons were very hard and some still bring tears to my eyes and there are things I would know now that I should have known then that I can not change.  Every person I met along the way to today made an impact on who I am now.  Some of my lessons made me a better person; some of them taught me that life is reality.  But that is yesterday; and yesterday is gone.  I will not pass that way again.  There are no second chances at some things.

So Happy New Year!  We will toast a cup of kindness now to Auld Lang Syne; however you spell it and whatever it means!  Today is a new day and tomorrow will be a new year.  Every New Years Eve, I forgive myself, and every New Years Day, I try to do better.  Maybe someday I will get it right.

One more thing I know is that when I finally do get it right, the big guy upstairs is going to jerk the rug out from under me and holler "Hurry up and get in here while you are good to go!"

Peace to all and remember,

 "You can not sprinkle showers of happiness on other people without getting a few drops on yourself."

January is about behind me, thank God.

Well, it has been a very rough start for this year.  We lost Pastor Jeannine Lamb right before Christmas.  Her sudden passing threw me into a new low both at church and home.  I spent a lot of time over the holiday with her life partner, Kathy.  That helped me work through it some what.  Of course now comes the work of finding a new pastor.  Kevin Olsen is doing pulpit supply for us until we can find an interim ministry so that takes a load off our shoulders.  Does not make life easier though as there are meetings and more meetings.

Also passing was Rae Flanagan, whom I had gone to church with for years.  Very nice and very classy lady.    Lee Dorsey was the last of the people I had gone to church with and my heart breaks for his beautiful daughter, Bernadette and her husband, Jesse.   I also lost a client, Irene.  On the upside, I got a new great grandson.

Ended the year having a new furnace installed.  House insurance and car insurance both jumped up 25%.  Never had a wreck in my life, but my insurance keeps going up.  Not the social security check though,  That just keeps getting stretched further to pay utilities and buy groceries.  We all know how long this cheap gas is going to last, don't we?

As I look forward to the new year left ahead of me, I can hear the limb rubbing on the back of the house roof and know that is going to need to come down and that means more money.  Car has 105000 miles on it so needs to have all kinds of little things done to it.  I think about just selling and moving into town and that scares me.  When I do that there is no going back to the big house in the country with 2 dogs, a cat and 9 geese.  It is easy to downsize at my age, but up sizing is out of the question.

So I am going to set here in my big house surrounded by all my stuff I have accumulated and think about what is going to happen this coming year.  I have lots of big plans and lots of things I want to do, but time will tell as to what happens.  Who knows, maybe next year I will be the one not here and someone else will be missing me!  That is the fun part of life; not knowing.

So for now, I am going to keep loving all my friends and acquaintances and if one of them falls by the wayside I will know I did my best and if the "fallee" happens to be me, they can shed a tear and know that we parted on the best of terms.

We are not promised tomorrow.  We have only today.

Happy New Year! Or it might be subtitled "Here's hoping!"

So here I am in another year.  Who would have thought this would keep happening to me?  I am recalling a time when when the kids were little and I had a moment of clarity and purchased a life insurance policy so when I bit the big one there would be money to finish raising them.  Nice thought at the time.  So for a few years I made my payments and then seeing that I was still pretty much alive, I cancelled it, but they sent me a term life paid up till 1979.  I was pretty sure that would cover me until I met an untimely death in what ever manner it could be.  You must know that I have not always been this sweet little old lady you see before you and I have also not had much of a filter on my mouth especially when I was upset.
But, to make a long story short, I outlived that policy and several more after that.  Finally gave up on term life insurance as a bad bet on my time here on this big green/blue ball.  And now, rather then making a list of all the wonderful things I am going to do in the new year and all the bad things I am going to quit doing, I am keeping a score card!  Now, even that is a waste of time because I do not remember what I did last year so what am I going to compare it to this year?  So, I am going to just tell you a few of the improvements I have made in my life over the last ...well since I came to Colorado.
Having dropped out of school my senior year, I went to college and received a degree in accounting.
I became proficient on the computer.
I opened a store on ebay and maintain 100% feedback after 6 years.
I started attending church regularly.
I learned to weave and spin.
I quit smoking.
I volunteer my time for others through SCAP, Sangre de Cristo Hospice, Los Pobres, and anyone else who needs me.
I wrote a book and published it.
My blog is successful.
I do a little hiking in the mountains, but not alone because I am afraid of bears.
So, I am guessing I am in better shape this year then I have been a lot of years before.  And I can see a bright future ahead if I just keep my eye on the prize.  Just gotta say it though....

HAPPY NEW YEAR...2015!!