Happy Nearly New Year

It’s the last Monday of the year and it would be oh so easy to do a “year in review” type of post.  I wonder if that’s what this week’s daily prompts will be. The same prompt every day just worded a little different. Sort of like politics. Our politics this year were worded a little different. Mostly worded as lies. Turns out more people like lies more than truth, no matter how positive the truth might be. So yeah, but no, a year in review is off the list for today.

If not looking back, how about looking forward. I could make predictions of what 2025 will be like. But if you want to know how next year will be, you just have to visit your local shot and a beer bar and you’ll find more people than you can shake a stick at who will tell you just what’s going to happen next year. And they’ll be right because they all knew exactly how this year was going to be. I can hear them now. “Yep, I told you so” they will start. No, predictions aren’t for me.

How about I do a “best of” los of my posts from 2024? That’s perfect. Non-controversial. Non-political, non-critical of anything. Yep, we can do a best of from 2024, and um, that would be all of them. How can you pick the best? It’s like picking the best child or the best bacon. They’ll all yummy. Just like bacon.

I’m running out of ideas and if I don’t come up with something we’ll run out of Monday before I get anything typed onto the screen. What to do, what to do, what to do?

Aha! Why didn’t I think of this before? Resolutions! I’ll make my resolutions for 2025 and post them here and then you can check back with me later this year and together we’ll see how I did. And if you check back with me in March, I’ll tell you what they are. Didn’t you ever read that I don’t make resolutions in January. If New Year’s Day came later in the year, perhaps when the days are getting warmer and flowers are starting to bloom, then we can come up with some good resolutions.  Come see me when I’m not standing knee deep in used gift boxes trying to remember if they are recyclable, and when not I’m cleaning out the refrigerator of all the traditional holiday foods that everybody wanted but nobody ate.

Nope, the ideal time for New Year’s is late March, just about when spring is springing.  It’s far enough away from Valentine’s Day and Easter that we can use a holiday then. The long depressing nights are over so our resolutions can be positive and begin with “we resolve that we will do this” like the start of a real goal rather than “we will never again do that” like the opening for a bad excuse. So, resolutions are out too.

So just what should I write about? How about, I hope you all had a happy whatever holiday you celebrate. Whatever one that was I am certain it had traditions that leaned toward love and fellowship, peace and joy, happiness and more love. How about I write that I wish you the spirit of the holidays all year long until we can do this again next year.  I’ll bring the champagne.

And if you absolutely must have a New Years Resolution, try this on for size ⬇️

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Did you know there are 14 religious holidays in December and January? Do you even know 14 religions? I didn’t know any of that until curiosity got the better of me. Something they all have in common is that they when we remember something special shared with special people at a special time. Explore winter’s special times with us in our updated Winter Carol, last week’s Uplift post that we found, well,most uplifting.


That One Thing

As we enter December “Hooray, 2020 is almost over!” is moving to the top of everybody’s mental “Things to Be Thankful For” list. Should it be? The calendar is a few short weeks away from turning the big page to 2021, how much will be new in the New Year?

Come New Year’s Eve people will take part in the traditional announcing of their New Year’s Resolutions wishing for a fresh start to the fresh year in a positive frame of mind. With the concentration of negative news and events this year has given us, one day of wishing may not be enough. So here is the challenge: each day of December find one thing from 2020 that was a positive for you and resolve to repeat whatever actions you took then to make that happen again in 2021. Surely this can’t be done you say! How can anybody find 31 positive things that happened in 2020? Well, for one thing, it isn’t 1520.

By 1520 fifty-six million people, that’s 56,000,000 people, perished worldwide in the great smallpox pandemic. By comparison, so far in 2020 only 1.5 million have succumbed to CoViD-19. That is still a lot of people and the current pandemic will not end when the current year expires. Comparing again to the smallpox pandemic, that wave actually began in 1518 with few deaths.  Assisted by increased travel for trade and exploration, the variola virus easily made its way around the world with devastating effects, initiating the eventual loss of 40% of the Aztec empire population, over 8 million people, just 2 years later.

PlusBalThat was then, now is now. What good came out of 2020 for you other than being born 5 centuries later than your counterpart from 1520? Perhaps it was a new friendship you started with someone who was once “just a neighbor” when you found yourself spending more time on your front porch rather than at work and began trading tales of things you’d rather be doing. Perhaps it was a newfound hobby born of necessity like baking or of boredom like painting. These are the positives of 2020 that can become the resolutions for a better 2021. Talk to my neighbors more than a grunted “uh” is passing. Learn a new bread recipe and bake a loaf each month even if I can find plenty of bread on the store’s shelf. Read a book that has nothing to do with work, school, or that on-line book club I got roped into last April. Play a game of Clue without wishing I had the candlestick in the dining room RIGHT NOW! Buy a spin bike and work out at home with all the money I saved not paying for the gym membership I never used or even wanted to use until I couldn’t.

So … every day for the next thirty-one begin each day remembering one thing, just one thing that was good, that was a positive for you, that happened this year. In fact, just do 30. Take Christmas off. I will not be surprised that by New Year’s Eve you will have gone from struggling to remember one positive thing every morning to rattling off 30 new positive things each morning! Then you can start 2021 with the resolve that next year you will do it all over again – just the way you did this year.

A Virtue by Any Other Name

I’m writing this at about 11:30 Wednesday morning while I’m waiting for my car to be serviced. It’s not the little roadster I’ve often mentioned here but the daily driver. Since my daily drives are now short, few, and far between, it is more aptly a daily parker. But still with even less than 5,000 miles added to its journeys since last December, it needs its annual safety inspection and oil change.

Although there are more than a handful of 29 minute oil change places within a few miles of me I opted for the dealership service department. It’s very close. Close enough I could walk home if I didn’t want to wait although an oil change and inspection is usually only a half hour wait and I can amuse myself reading the paper or tackling a crossword puzzle. And it’s only 9°F (-13°C) outside. That’s warmed up from the 5° it was when I got here 3 hours ago. Less than ideal outdoor walking weather.

Oh, yes, you read that right. Three hours. I have seen people come and people go and I’ve worked all the puzzles I’m I the mood to except the one that answers why it takes so long to drain old oil out, pour new oil in, honk the horn, flash the lights, and tap the brakes.

I guess that’s not a fair representation. I know there’s more to it than that and that those who have come and gone might have had even less work done. After all, it was only 5° at the start of the day. I’m sure lots if batteries are being sold and they can switch out 4 or 5 of them in the time it takes 5° oil to ooze out of crankcase.

I don’t know what you do but whatever you do somebody has said, why do you have to take so long, why do you charge so much, why did you have to go to school for that? All you’re doing is…

Knowing that I had been the subject of such complaints throughout my work days, I was certain I never said such a thing of others. Until 3 paragraphs ago. More than likely, until 50 years ago. Impatience is not one if the seven deadly sins but it certainly should be. I spent the first hour of waiting just fine. I sat in a comfortable chair in a warm lounge and read the morning paper. By the second hour I started getting impatient. The chair got hard, the paper was boring, and there was a definite chill in the air. Heading to the third hour I am close to irate. Why am I still here when I could be home in a comfortable chair …

in a warm room …

reading … um …

the rest … ah …

of …

the … um …

paper.

Hmm…

You know I don’t do resolutions at the beginning of the year but maybe I’ll make an exception and not do that again and hope that you don’t either. So it’s taking a little longer than I expected. Across the room is a father and son playing some sort of game on a tablet. In the corner is a young man appearing to be watching a webcast on his laptop, two seats down from me a pair of young women are planning a brunch before they take a third friend shopping for her wedding dress. They all have more things going on in their lives and don’t seem to mind the wait. I’m sure I can learn something from that.

Even at my advanced impatience.