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Who would have ever thought I would be sitting in my favorite spot on my upstairs porch writing my first post of the new year with the weather 70 degrees? That is especially true since we had the Big Chill hit us just before Christmas. I left town about that time so I avoided the worst of it. I had a neighbor nice enough to come check on things and turn off my dripping faucets after the worse was over which gave me peace of mind for Christmas, which is the greatest gift we can give each other. I left home with nairy a backwards glance knowing that my faucets would not freeze and that someone was there to check on things.
I made my usual family trifecta going to my children rather than them come to me. I went to both their houses then they came to me in a mountain cabin I had rented for us between Christmas and the new year. If you want to be visited by your children including the older grandchildren, there is a simple solution – go somewhere they want to be. The mountains are a good choice. There is not a lot to do except enjoy each other’s company and eat bountifully. They come to you, but when they are gone, you are not left cleaning up the big mess they left in their wake. You have already paid somebody else to do that when you rented the place. You just leave it presentable with nothing broken and you can walk out the door, with a good time had by all and nothing left for you to do. That, too, is a kind of peace of mind you can get if you pay for it.
I mentioned food. My whole family enjoys food. The older they get, the more they are willing to try new things. I have one grandchild who has always been a picky eater who thinks he needs to be catered to. Now all of a sudden, he has decided to eat more and different things. We had a lot of different things to eat. We had four adult female cooks who pooled their energies to prepare different things. We had pork schnitzel one night with rice and gravy. We had shrimp and grits. We had steaks cooked on the gas grill that came with our rental. That same grill also cooked hamburgers, Conecuh sausage and pork loin. We had all kinds of sides – hash brown potato casserole, green bean casserole, salads, and of course, for New Years’ we had the traditional black-eyed peas, turnip greens and cornbread. Everybody brought Christmas sweets. The biggest hit was Leah’s flourless chocolate cake. None of us plan to weigh for at least a week now that we are back lest we are ruin all the joy of eating with the sticker shock of the scales. Thank goodness nobody mentioned the C (calorie) word the entire time. We will each deal with it in our own way (weigh) when we return home. We had so much food, a honey ham returned home with one family as yet uneaten. That is true abundance!
I saw something on Facebook which I shared. It will be my only New Years’ resolution. I plan to keep a little jar where I keep things I write down on a little piece of paper all the good things that happen to me throughout the year. I won’t look at the slips of paper again until the end of the year. Then, I will sit down with the jar and read each one. I will be reminded of my blessings. I will see again whatIablestyearIhad.I can’t think of a better way to build good memories.
One blessing I will have to mention is the good weather in the mountains. The lady who rented to us came by to check on the hot tub. She said that the Big Chill week before had been horrendous. There were wrecks everywhere because people didn’t now how to drive on the icy roads. By the time we came, there was still ice spewing out of the mountainside on the way, but roads in the daytime were above freezing, so we didn’t have to contend with ice on the roads, even those country roads going around the mountains. That was a great blessing which will go right in the jar along with the family fun, food and fellowship we started the new year with. Start your own jar and count your blessings. By year’s end it will be overflowing. Happy New Year to you and your jar!
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