The picture above shows a small plaque that used to hang on the wall at Dad’s house. At some time over the years it must have fallen off the wall and broke in half. Dad glued it back together and put it back on the wall. When Dad passed away, I was delighted to receive this plaque, and it sits on my bookshelf along with all my other precious keepsakes. It reminds me (and I do need reminding a lot these days) that I shouldn’t worry about getting old, but instead be thankful for it.
This year, it is going to be very hard for some of us to be thankful. The year 2020 has dealt a blow to many families and some of them will never be the same again. Still, despite all that has happened this year, if we all look deep enough we can find something to be thankful for. Those of us who are still here on the planet most likely can be thankful for that, if nothing else. A lot of families have been beaten down by this year and are struggling to survive. Most of us can find someone who is way worse off than we are. You can be thankful for that. You don’t have to be a religious person to be thankful. Anyone can be thankful, all you have to do is just be aware of what you have that others do not have. I saw a post on Facebook this morning that expressed the concept very well. To be thankful is to adopt an “attitude of gratitude.”
Everyone’s Thanksgiving celebration this year will probably be smaller than in years past. For us, it will be just me and Linda this year, all by ourselves again. We got used to celebrating holidays by ourselves in Lumberton because our family members were not nearby, and all of our friends went to their hometowns to visit parents for the extended weekend. Since we moved to Yakima, most years we drove over to the Seattle area to be with family. But this year we will stay home and be by ourselves, to stay safe. We do not mind, though, because we are always thankful to be together.
MORE LEAVES
One morning this past week we had a pretty heavy frost. So when we took our walk there was still some of it lingering in the shadows. A few leaves caught my eye so I grabbed a quick shot of them. I imagine that pretty soon they will be covered up with snow.
Also on our walk we passed by this one tree that has been trimmed up nicely by the Parks and Recreation crew. The trunk of this tree is very interesting, branching off in all different directions. I think I like to see the wood on a tree even more than I like to see the leaves. The wood has so many different colors and shapes in it.
ODDS AND SODS
That’s a strange expression, and I had never heard it until I met Linda. It is mainly a British expression, one that I’m sure she heard her mother and other relatives use constantly. It is used to refer to different things that are usually thought of as unimportant…sort of the British version of “this and that.” At any rate, I am using it in the blog to denote some minor things to report on.
As you probably know, I am a Facebook user. Linda, however, has chosen Instagram as her social media platform. So I report things from Facebook to her, and she reports things from Instagram to me. That way we have both of them covered. One day this past week she sent me a screenshot of a post from the Instagram page Newspapers.com (click here to see the post). It was a recipe from 1920 for Gingerbread Men. I looked over the recipe, saw that I already had all the ingredients, so the next day I decided to make that recipe. I didn’t think my shaping skills were quite up to making gingerbread men, so I just made round cookies. They turned out great!
One day, as we were watching TV in the den, I saw something moving out on the patio, so I looked up just in time to see a hummingbird checking out the item in the picture below.
This little lizard hangs on a wall around our patio. I got him in La Paz, Mexico, when I went there several years ago with my work group. Apparently the hummer saw the red paint and was looking to see if it was a flower. Sadly, there are no flowers blooming in Yakima now. I hope the little guy kept on flying south for the winter, otherwise he is going to be pretty cold soon!
We finally finished the puzzle we were working on, and let me tell you, we were both so glad because that one was a doozy!! The little girl sat on it to give her opinion of it!
PARTING SHOT
Summer Girl is doing like the rest of us, getting older. This year we can really tell because she has become the Lap Kitty from Hell! She has taken to walking around the house, meowing profusely for no reason at all. We check her food and water… she has plenty of that. We open the door for her to go outside…she refuses to go out. But still she meows. We finally figured out that she wants one of us to sit down so she can get on a lap!! It is the funniest thing. And every morning, she starts off her day like this below. (turn up your sound and you may be able to hear her purring)
A note about my YouTube videos: YouTube has informed everyone who uses their platform for videos that they are going to begin inserting ads into ALL videos, even those whose channels are not “monetized.” When I started my blog in 2017, I decided that I did not want people reading my blog to have to sit through ads. Well, that has been taken out of my control, so I apologize if you see any ads in my videos. Rest assured that it was not my choice, and I do not make a penny off of these ads…YouTube does. I suppose on some level they deserve it for letting people use their platform, but it just doesn’t sit well with me. If I had any other way to get my videos on my blog, I would certainly use it.
Join me every Wednesday (barring any unforeseen circumstances) for more from the Southerner in the Northwest.
Southerner in the Northwest 