When I began this blog eight years ago, it was more an outlet and an experiment than what it is now, which is an extension of, well, me.

Eight years ago, I didn’t really consider the  internet to be full of anything personal, let alone actual people, and the few people I did encounter were most unpleasant.  The idea that there were internet people out there who could possibly be actual FRIENDS wasn’t even considered.  When the nice people started commenting and becoming more and more real to me. . . when these invisible people started becoming visible – both literally and figuratively – when I started to discover the wealth of friendship contained in this world wide web of wonder, it was as though I’d discovered what was really behind Ali Baba’s “Open Sesame,” (or, in the words of Popeye, ‘Open Sez Me!’ )and it was treasure beyond comprehension.  I used to think that “friends” had to be “here” in order to be really and truly real, but I’ve learned better since the beginning.

Online friends are as real as the other kind, and “there” is also “here” in the Blogosphere.

I hope all of you have a wonderful and positive New Year. I hope nothing bad happens to any of you, and I hope you are all safe, and healthy, and happy, every single day. You, and everybody who is precious to you.

As I am a teacher, I must, of course, do a little teaching here.

Did you know that the automated Times Square dropping ball was invented by a teenager? This teenager has become a very amazing adult, responsible for many innovative inventions and wonderful ideas and brilliant concepts. We study Dean Kamen in my college reading class, and he is well worth your attention, for his contributions have made and are making the world a better place for many people.

This song, which all of us will be hearing and maybe even singing tonight, always makes me tear up. Even back before I knew what it meant, something about it was both sad, and happy, and sentimental.

It also makes me think of When Harry Met Sally, which is and always will be one of my favorite movies of all time.  It’s also the perfect New Year’s Eve group movie, as most of you will already know.

What does this song really mean? I think it’s important that we all know, since it’s a song that’s become a kind of holiday icon for most people. When you sing or hear it tonight, think about what the words are saying.

Auld Lang Syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, (Should old acquaintances be forgotten,)
And never brought to mind ( And never remembered?)
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And the days of auld lang syne. ( And days of long ago.)

And surely ye ‘ll be your pint’ stowp (And surely you will pay for your pint)
And surely I ‘ll be mine ( And surely I’ll pay for mine)
And we ‘ll take a cup o’ kindness yet ( We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet)
For auld lang syne ( for the days of long ago.)

We twa hae run about the braes (We two have run around the hillsides)
And pou’d the gowans fine ( and pulled the daisies fine)
But we ‘ve wander’d monie a weary fit ( But we have wandered many a weary foot)
Sin’ auld lang syne. ( Since the days of long ago.)

We twa hae paidl’d in the burn (We two have paddled in the stream)
Frae morning sun till dine ( From noon ‘till dinner time)
But seas between us braid hae roar’d ( But seas between us broad have roared)
Sin’ the days of auld lang syne ( Since the days of long ago)

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere (And there’s a hand, my trusty friend)
And gie ‘s a hand o’ thine ( And give us a hand of yours)
And we ‘ll tak a right guid-willie waught ( And we will take a goodwill draught)
For auld lang syne ( For the days of long ago)

[CHORUS]For auld lang syne, my dear (For the days of long ago, my dear)
For auld lang syne ( For the days of long ago)
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet ( We’ll take a cup of kindness yet)
For auld lang syne ( For the days of long ago.)

To answer the question of whether or not old acquaintances should ever be forgotten, the answer is, most emphatically, “NO.”

Not till the Alzheimer’s makes me say “Oh Baby” to the nursing home orderlies.

I love you, dear friends. And I wish you were all here so we could take a right guid willie waught together. I’m really up for some good willie waught.

Have a wonderful and safe New Year’s Eve. Let’s all still be here New Year’s Day. I don’t want to hear of any wonky driving from any of you, you hear? I don’t want to read about you in the newspapers tomorrow, either. Especially on the obituary page. (The police log would be bad enough. . . .)

Happy New Year. I hope 2012 is the best year yet, for all of you.

Happy New Year to you all.

There are a lot of old, boring, easily offended, humorless  people out there who don’t care much for the excitement, the wonder, the sparkles and reflections and tinsel and candles and suspense and giggles and hand-clapping and jammied children and ribbons and pretty paper and surprises, and this makes me sad for them. However, I also figure they were pretty much the same when they were young younger.

I think the ability or tendency to glow and laugh and clap and appreciate things is there in all of us, and whether we let the light of these things shine through us – or not – is a choice we make. Scrooge was Scrooge because he chose to be Scrooge. Yes, certain childhood happenings helped mold him, but ultimately, he chose his life. Free will choice. All of our lives are that way. We can’t always control the circumstances, and sometimes Karma really hits us below the belt, but we can always control the way we deal with it. Most of us go up and down, back and forth, hot and cold with our reactions; even-keeled people are rare and actually rather boring. But whether we reel from the blows and get back up, or stay down and cover our heads and wait for more, is up to us. We’ve all been there.

Me, I love Christmas. What, you didn’t know?

Christmas Eve is such a magical time. It’s all ahead of us, you see. To paraphrase Katie, age 8, in my all-time favorite Christmas novel  What Child Is This, by Caroline Cooney, the night before Christmas isn’t called a ‘night,’ it’s called ‘eve,’ and Christmas morning isn’t called ‘morning,’ it’s ‘morn.’ Eve and morn: two special words to highlight two special times.  All the other times of the year have mornings and evenings, and New Year’s has “eve,”  but only Christmas has both eve and morn.

Eve and morn are special.

How special are they? They are special already, in their own right, but how you make them special for yourself and for your children is entirely up to you. I hope you give them memories they will cherish all their lives, so much so that they will pass the glory along to their own children.

Children flourish with roots, but they soar with wings.

May your Eve be full of anticipation and warmth, and may your Morn be all you hoped it would be.

Let’s talk about Christmas. I consider it the crown: the end of the year, the thing that makes winter endurable.  Remember, Narnia was nothing but ice, snow, and bone-chilling cold while the White Witch ruled it.  “Always winter and never Christmas” is still one of the scariest descriptions I’ve ever heard.

The White Witch still wants to erase Christmas from our winter.  I’ve got an idea:  Let’s not allow it.

Honestly, I don’t care if people choose not to view December as the highlight of winter.  Celebrate something, or not.  I’m a firm believer in families doing whatever they want in their own homes.  Once outside that home, however,  people need to go with the flow.  Don’t like it?  Move. No one person is the center of the universe.  It is only in our own homes that we deserve to get our own way.  And not all the time, unless you’re the only one living there.

Grinches will get no attention from me, except the smirk and snark when they turn their backs.  I expect the same consideration (until I turn my back) from them.  And if they’re nice and do what’s right, nobody will ever know they’re Grinch-y.  I’m sorry for their children, though.

In public, however, only rude beasts throw greetings back into someone’s face, or take offense if someone puts a symbol on their lawn.  Or throws a hissy fit at the sight of a symbol anywhere, for that matter.  Chill.

Good manners are free.  Let’s all take advantage of that!

=======

1. Probably the reason we all go so haywire at Christmas time with the endless unrestrained and often silly buying of gifts is that we don’t quite know how to put our love into words. –Harlan Miller

2. The only real blind person at Christmas-time is he who has no Christmas in his heart. –Helen Keller

3. Off to one side sits a group of shepherds. They sit silently on the floor, perhaps perplexed, perhaps in awe, no doubt in amazement. Their night watch had been interrupted by an explosion of light from heaven and a symphony of angels. God goes to those who have time to hear him – and so on this cloudless night he went to simple shepherds. –Max Lucado

4. Of course, this is the season to be jolly, but it is also a good time to be thinking about those who aren’t. –Helen Valentine

5. When we recall Christmas past, we usually find that the simplest things – not the great occasions – give off the greatest glow of happiness. –Bob Hope

6. What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace. –Agnes M. Pharo

7. We should try to hold on to the Christmas spirit, not just one day a year, but 365. –Mary Martin

8. Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won’t make it “white.” –Bing Crosby

9. There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child. –Erma Bombeck

10. May we not “spend” Christmas or “observe” Christmas, but rather “keep” it. –Peter Marshall

11. A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together. –Garrison Keillor

12. Late on a sleepy, star-spangled night, those angels peeled back the sky just like you would tear open a sparkling Christmas present. Then, with light and joy pouring out of Heaven like water through a broken dam, they began to shout and sing the message that baby Jesus had been born. The world had a Savior! The angels called “Good News,” and it was. –Larry Libby

13. I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year. As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through the year. And thus I drift along into the holidays – let them overtake me unexpectedly – waking up some find morning and suddenly saying to myself: “Why, this is Christmas Day!” –David Grayson

14. . . . God’s visit to earth took place in an animal shelter with no attendants present and nowhere to lay the newborn king but a feed trough. . . For just an instant the sky grew luminous with angels, yet who saw the spectacle? Illiterate hirelings who watched the flocks of others, “nobodies” who failed to leave their names. . . . –Philip Yancy

15. Christmas isn’t just a day. It’s a frame of mind. –Valentine Davies

16. Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it’s Christmas. –Dale Evans

17. Remember, if Christmas isn’t found in your heart, you won’t find it under a tree. –Charlotte Carpenter

18. To the American People: Christmas is not a time or a season but a state of mind. To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas. If we think on these things, there will be born in us a Savior and over us will shine a star sending its gleam of hope to the world. –Calvin Coolidge

19. My first copies of Treasure Island and Huckleberry Finn still have some blue-spruce needles in the pages. They smell of Christmas still. –Charlton Heston

20. They err who thinks Santa Claus comes down through the chimney; he really enters through the heart. –Mrs. Paul M. Ell

21. The perfect Christmas tree? All Christmas trees are perfect! –Charles N. Barnard

22. This is the message of Christmas: We are never alone. –Taylor Caldwell

23. My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that? –Bob Hope

24. Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart. . . filled it, too, with melody that would last forever. –Bess Streeter Aldrich

25. Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect. –Oren Arnold

26. Which Christmas is the most vivid to me? It’s always the next Christmas. –Joanne Woodward

27. Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we’re here for something else besides ourselves. –Eric Sevareid

28. One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don’t clean it up too quickly. –Andy Rooney

29. Christmas is the keeping place for memories of our innocence. –Joan Mills

30. Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love. –Hamilton Wright Mabie

31. So here comes Gabriel again, and what he says is “Good tidings of great joy. . . for all people.” That’s why the shepherds are first: they represent all the nameless, all the working stiffs, the great wheeling population of the whole world. –Walter Wangerin Jr.

32. Christmas is the day that holds all time together. –Alexander Smith

33. A Christmas candle is a lovely thing. It makes no noise at all. But softly gives itself away, While quite unselfish, it grows small. –Eva K. Logue

34. Christmas is not an eternal event at all, but a piece of one’s home that one carries in one’s heart. –Freya Stark

35. The magi, as you know, were wise men – wonderfully wise men, who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. –O. Henry

36. Perhaps the best Yuletide decoration is being wreathed in smiles. –Unknown

37. Christmas is the time to let your heart do the thinking. –Patricia Clafford

38. Christmas is for children. But it is for grownups, too. Even if it is a headache, a chore, and nightmare, it is a period of necessary defrosting of chill and hide-bound hearts. –Lenora Mattingly Weber

39. Christmas Day is a day of joy and charity. May God make you very rich in both. –Phillips Brooks

40. I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph. –Shirley Temple

41. The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other. –Burton Hillis

42. So if a Christian is touched only once a year, the touching is still worth it, and maybe on some given Christmas, some quiet morning, the touch will take. –Harry Reasoner

43. A scientist said, making a plea for exchange scholarships between nations, “The very best way to send an idea is to wrap it up in a person.” That was what happened at Christmas. The idea of divine love was wrapped up in a Person. –Halford E. Luccock

44. As we struggle with shopping lists and invitations, compounded by December’s bad weather, it is good to be reminded that there are people in our lives who are worth this aggravation, and people to whom we are worth the same. –Donald E. Westlake

45. Ask your children two questions this Christmas. First: “What do you want to give to others for Christmas?” Second: What do you want for Christmas?” The first fosters generosity of heart and an outward focus. The second can breed selfishness if not tempered by the first. –Anonymous

46. Christmas has lost its meaning for us because we have lost the spirit of expectancy. We cannot prepare for an observance. We must prepare for an experience. –Handel H. Brown

47. In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it ‘Christmas’ and went to church; the Jews called it ‘Hanukkah’ and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say ‘Merry Christmas!” or “Happy Hanukkah!’ or (to the atheists) ‘Look out for the wall!” –Dave Barry

48. Nothing’s as mean as giving a little child something useful for Christmas. –Kin Hubbard

49. Selfishness makes Christmas a burden. Love makes it a delight. –Unknown

50. When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs? –Gilbert Keith Chesterton

“Charity” doesn’t mean “giving to the poor and needy;” it means LOVE, and love covers all bases. Using a belief system to rationalize your own personal whatevers is a cop-out, plain and simple. There are people out there who need you, and to walk on by because they said or did something that “offended” you is . . . okay, I’ll say it: it’s evil. Selfish and evil.

What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other? — George Eliot

The three stages of man:

1. He believes in Santa Claus

2. He doesn’t believe in Santa Claus

3. He IS Santa Claus.

That struck me as being funny, and true. And also, even, a little bit sad, and I’m not sure why. Poignancy is always a combination of emotions, and knowing something wonderful is temporary makes us sad, even while we revel in it.

I am Santa Claus. And I do NOT want to ever let the people I love down, at Christmas or any other time. But I also realize that the people we love most have the most potential for hurting. And for being hurt. Any people who are emotionally involved have tremendous power over each other. I hope we all try to use that power only for good.

You know, like Superman. Superman used his powers for good. Unless he was under the influence of kryptonite, in which case he became a flying armageddon.  I’ve met many human kryptonite chunks, working tirelessly to promote only their own beliefs and working just as tirelessly to tear down everybody else’s.  They work so hard at destroying that they’ve no time left for building up.

Let us never allow the influence of ‘something else’ to turn us into anything other than good.

“Something else” being possibly another person, or just, something else. “Under the influence” is “under the influence,” whatever outside ‘something else’ is influencing us.

You are Santa Claus for someone. Do not let them down.  The people you know, the people you love, the people you know AND love, and people you don’t even know, need you to be Santa Claus.  Nameless, faceless children need you.  They need you badly.  If you’ve got a biscuit, please give someone half.

No belief system in the universe is a reason NOT to be Santa for someone.

And if you are a person who does not believe in this mysterious spirit of generosity we call Santa Claus, then, um, uh, hmmm. . . . . okay, I’ll say it. You are stupid. Grow up and become Santa Claus. Somewhere out there is a child who desperately needs your powers. It might be your own child, or it might be a stranger’s. What difference does it make what child it is? Get out there and make someone happy. Or, at least, happier. Make a difference. Ho ho ho.

I’ll go even farther: If you are the kind of person who gets all huffy and offended and indignant because someone dared to wish you well in a language not suited to your personal belief system, shame on you. You’re angry because someone DARED wish you well? How dare YOU!!!!! How dare you throw someone’s sincere good wishes back into his/her face!!!!!

Now, get out there and make someone happy. If you have no children, go borrow some.

Life is so fleeting; why waste any of it in offended huffiness? We should all be trying our best to add to life, not suck the wonder out of it.

Oh, and fair warning: if you don’t like the tone of this post, suck it up. It’s the first of many, this season, because easily offended people are one of my favorite targets.

They’re the whiny kid on the playground who is good for a show every time he/she doesn’t get his/her own way.

Is that you? I hope not. Such reactions are ugly in a child, but even uglier in an adult. But if it is, I’ll say it again: shame on you.

Santa is a symbol, a representation of a person who lives to help others. He’s a role model for us all.

Bring it on.

What’s a Hoosier Thanksgiving feast without persimmon pudding?  A travesty, that’s what!  Whoever heard of such a thing?  Ridiculous.

Persimmons don’t grow in too many places, so chances are good that most of you have never heard of them. However, southern Indiana is a persimmon tree’s favorite home, and the trees grow healthy and prolific here. My fantastic and generous Cousin C gives me persimmon pulp, fresh from her parents’ back yard.  In fact, she brought some over just today!

That means, of course, that tonight’s the night. *

Hint: Don’t EVER taste a green persimmon, unless you like the sensation a blast of raw alum gives to your lips and tongue. Persimmons must be ripe before they can be used. VERY ripe. Asking someone you’re mad at to just “touch your tongue to this green persimmon for a second” is a fun, albeit cruel (depending on the age of the taster) trick to play on someone. Raw alum on the tongue. Yum. It’s a sensation vaguely akin to being turned inside out by the tongue.

On second thought, everybody should try that at least once.  How else can you appreciate the fun of doing it to someone else?

By request (ask, and ye shall receive) here is my very own tried-and-true persimmon pudding recipe again.  I’ve tweaked it over the years until it was perfection in a pan.

Hoosiers can be very protective and possessive of their persimmon pudding recipes, but I’m not. People have been asking me for it, so here it is:

Jane’s Persimmon Pudding

First of all, preheat your oven to 325 degrees. NO HOTTER.

Get out a very large bowl.

Put the following ingredients in it:

2 C. persimmon pulp (Use fresh or frozen; the canned stuff is terrible.)

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 C sugar (I use Splenda)

1 C brown sugar (don’t use fake)

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt (don’t leave it out!!!!) (don’t use fake salt, either.)

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

2 C flour

2 1/2 C evaporated milk (not sweetened milk)

1/4 stick butter (not merely oil) (margarine works, but butter is better)

Put everything in that large bowl and mix thoroughly. Use an electric mixer if you don’t think you can get it blended by hand. Get the lumps out.

Pour mixture into a large buttered baking pan.

Put the pan in the oven. Set your timer for 60 minutes.

After the timer goes off, stick a toothpick in the center of the pudding. Clean? It’s done.

Let it cool just enough to slice. Most people like to top it with whipped cream. Non-Hoosiers often sprinkle nuts on it.

You can also add coconut or pecans or cocoa to the mixture, but then it’s not Hoosier Persimmon Pudding. Your call.

*. . . for making persimmon pudding. Why, what were YOU thinking?

Everyone has a fourth of July. It’s right there between the third and the fifth, so none of your lip now. . . .

I was looking at all the black burn marks on the deck today and wishing the kids were still little and out there making more.  Our deck is covered with many years’ worth of black burned Fourth of July spots. Isn’t everybody’s?

Please tell me your deck is covered with black spots too?  From bottle rockets and snakes and all kinds of fun noisy things?

Well, mine is, and I love the memories.

I’m afraid to ask about your sidewalk, because, well, mine has a lot of black spots on it from those “snakes” the kids used to burn when they were little. I like the spots, because they make me remember those giggling little kids, watching the coiling black snakes with big laughing eyes. The kids, not the snakes.

I’d rather have the spots, and the memories, than a life full of pristine “things.”

Have a wonderful holiday, everyone. Please be safe, and happy. Don’t step on the hot sparkler wires on the ground. Watch out for the tiny kids; sometimes they bite and keep them out of harm’s way.

I love you all. Happy Independence Day!

Shhh, listen!  Do you hear freedom ringing?  I do.

Let’s all work hard to keep it so.  Let’s not wait until we’re at the funeral home and it’s too late to say “I love you” to someone until another horrendous crisis to rally together and love our country in public.

P.S.  Loud pops, bangs, smoke, and cool colors aren’t necessarily dangerous.  Here are some great ways your kids (and you – who are we kidding?) can have a great time making loud noises and playing with smoke and cool stuff!  You’re welcome.

Mamacita says:

Happy Easter, everyone.

What? Oh, oops. . . . .

Here. This is more like it. I do love those vintage Easter postcards. I hated growing up and finding out that those baby kittens were probably going to eat those baby chicks. I would also hate to have to tell you all how old I was before I realized that the bunnies weren’t really responsible for all those eggs.

But ultimately, this is Easter to me.

And isn’t it wonderful that so many of us, with so many different beliefs, can hang out here in the Blogosphere and get along great and love each other without having to constantly proselytize and try to sway each other to our own beliefs?

Oh, sure, those people are online too, but I don’t pay much attention to them.  Not here; not anywhere.

It’s the people whose beliefs are quietly lived every day, the people who show me by example what their values are, who get my attention.

And who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor? If you don’t believe me, just look around for a minute or two. Think of your family.

And if you’re alone, look in the mirror.

See?

Happy Easter, dear internet people. Eat chocolate. Get together with family.  Smile. Have some eggs. Rejoice over something.

It’s a good day for rejoicing. . . .

(Originally posted on Easter, 2005, but nothing’s changed since then.)

Oh, about that Easter Island head?  It and its clone guard the entrance to the local city park.  We carve limestone here.

Are you going to eat that Reese’s Egg?

Oh, tis a wondrous thing to be Irish, although the same could not be said earlier in our country’s history. Many people do not know how unwelcome the Irish were here, in those days. We’ve since learned wisdom.

I loved to read about Beany Malone for so many reasons, some of which were the casual ways their Irish ancestry was a part of their everyday lives.

Click here for some cool St. Patrick’s Day experiments for you and your kids to do, stolen borrowed from the Master Magician Scientist, Steve Spangler.

What’s a little green water between friends?

(This picture is by Tim Nyberg, a fantastic artist who draws awesome things for the Wittenburg Door, which is a wonderful thing in and of itself.) (Don’t click the link if your corncob makes you walk funny.)

What is it supposed to be?

Why, it’s St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland, of course.

It was no mean feat, and I should know.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all. If you’re not wearing green, strangers are allowed to pinch you.

What’s that? I can’t hear you. Come a little closer. . . thaaaaat’s right. Gotcha.

I repost this, adding a little here and there and subtracting a little likewise, each March 17, so if it looks familiar to you, you’re not crazy. Well, not about this post, anyway.

Pogue Ma’Hone to you all, for you know why you deserve it even if I don’t.

No, we don’t really even SEE the front door much, unless it’s December and I’m hanging a big beautiful wreath on said door.

I mention this tonight because said wreath is still hanging on said door.  I use my non-use of the door as my main excuse; who remembers what she never sees, after all?

However, whenever we have day after day after day of pouring incessant torrential rain, for some reason I can’t STOP think of that out-of-season wreath hanging on the front door for all the world to see and pass judgment on as it hangs helplessly, in March, and dripping because it’s thoroughly soaked and can’t be brought into the house until it’s completely dried out which will take more weeks and by then I’ll have forgotten about it again and won’t find it until it’s time to hide Easter eggs, and I’ll be so embarrassed at being THAT PERSON who still has a wreath on the door in springtime that I’ll probably seclude myself in the dining room and devour all the Reese’s Eggs in spite of my diabetes and overall fatness.

I’ve been obsessing so much over that soaking wet Christmas wreath that I’ve hardly had time to notice the large black iron basket overflowing with golden balls and candles sitting there on top of the tiny little corner table in the foyer right beside the front door, and which I walk past at least a dozen times a day.  Apparently, it has mutant powers and is fighting so hard for survival that it becomes invisible whenever it senses my presence.

I don’t have the excuse of it being soaking wet, either.  I haven’t thought up my excuse for leaving it be yet, in fact.  If you have any suggestions, please, bring ‘em on.

Because the fact is, whenever I DO “see” the basket of golden glowing balls and candles there, it still makes me smile.  In fact, I usually smile twice.  Once for the general coolness of the black basket full of golden balls and candles, and once because I’m such a tool for having a Christmas basket of balls in my foyer in March.

Come on over and see it.  Use the front door so you can see the wreath.

During my annual re-reading of A Lantern in Her Hand and A White Bird Flying (two of my very favorites and I highly recommend them to all of you) I was again struck and reduced to tears by the simple message etched on the stones in the garden path at the home of J. Sterling Morton (who gave Arbor Day to the nation) and his bride:  Hours fly, Flowers die. New days, New ways, Pass by. Love stays.

Love stays.

And in the book, Laura Deal is more touched and moved by the sight of one simple little china dish, a little china hen spreading her china wings, that Mrs. Morton brought to Nebraska with her so she would always have something of her old home in her new home, than by the grandeur of the governor’s eventual home. I am that way, too, for it is the small things that make a home, not any grand exterior or grounds. I love these two books beyond any ability to tell you how much.

Mrs. Morton’s little china dish makes me remember Ma Ingalls and her little china shepherdess.  Most pioneer women had at least one cherished, impractical, often fragile item they brought with them from their old home in the East, to remind them of that home, and to help them remember that there is more to life than dirt, sweat, and hard work.  Sometimes, we need a reminder, however small, that life also promises great beauty, music, hope, and a better life for our children than we can hope for, for ourselves.

Molly Ivins was one of my idols, and this motto of hers  is the motto I have adopted for my very own.

“… keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”

I have never been much of a fighter, but maybe it’s time to start swinging.

No, not THAT kind of swinging. Scheisse, I love the blogosophere.

I hope everyone’s day is full of love and Hershey’s Kisses. They’re called ‘kisses’ because of the sound the machine makes when it lays one down on the belt. How would you like to work there? “Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss. . . .” all day long. By the time those people get home, their hormones must be raw and ready to be salved. If you know what I mean.

We went out for deep-dish pizza last night, to beat the Valentine’s Day restaurant rush. We had a lot more fun in the booth at Grecco’s than most people will have in their overpriced candlelit crowded reservations-only Valentine’s Day elegant ambiance-filled restaurant tonight. Then again, I am very, very low-maintenance, and proud of it.

“. . . all the oddities that freedom can produce. . . .” Why would we ever want anything else?

I miss you, Molly. But, love stays.