Holiday Season

A beautiful bright day in northern Wyoming. Our town is decked out in its Holiday finery! There is a skiff of snow, making the landscape clean and pretty. A damp fog moved in last night and left the bare trees and bushes with a coat of "frosting" to sparkle in the sunshine. The year is drawing to a close. A time for reflection.

Recently, a dear relative passed away at age 103. Then a phone call today to tell us of the death of an old friend. A coworker buried her Fathr-in-law this week. We've become the older generation. Several friends are ill or struggling to deal with recent surgeries, so we keep them all in our thoughts and prayers.

There is a new girl in our family and we have so few girls! So we are thrilled to welcome her. One of my coworkers has two small girls. They got to visit with Santa Thursday at Library story hour and sit on his lap and get their picture taken. Their beautiful eyes sparkled as they shared their adventure with me! So we must look to the young ones and hope they will enjoy a good life ahead. The best gifts are the gifts of hope and peace and good health. May they be so blest. A local couple are working with their family to build a new home. They hope to have it ready and be moved in for the Holidays. What a special gift to each other, a new home in which to spend their retirement and make new memories with their sons and Grandchildren, this Holidays and hopefully many Holidays to come.

The matriarch of my husband's family made a relish of cranberries and oranges each year. A part of our Holiday tradition. I fixed a big batch today and thought of her. Then I mixed up special fruit cakes, a tradition and recipe shared with us by friends from Texas, it features lots of Texas pecans! The shadow of Alzheimers clouds the Holidays for them. But we celebrated so many Holidays together in the past. So we will speak of them and the good times we shared and keep them in our prayers. We will join our son and his wife and attend an Open House this evening. Our friends live in a lovely log home at the foot of the Big Horn Mountains. We will warm ourselves by their fireplace and enjoy the view of the snow capped mountains and perhaps get to see an elk herd grazing on the lower meadows. There will be a huge tree, delicious food and lots of happy chatter, as we all pause a minute to enjoy the season and the simple pleasure of catching up with old friends and perhaps meeting a new friend or two.

And so new memories are made.

MOTHERS DAY

A nice weekend! Everyone celebrates and shows their appreciation to their Mother and/or the Mother of their children. My children brought me flowers and took us out for a wonderful brunch at our local historic hotel. And we thought of our Mothers and Grandmothers, gone on their final reward. Families are precious and appreciated and should be--everyday of the year. But very nice to have an excuse to dress up and do something "special".

Happy May Day!

A chilly day in northern Wyoming! A few white snowflakes decorate the greening grass. But the sun peeps thru sometime during the day, giving us a promise of warmer times to come. The tulips are ready to bloom and the fernleaf peonies seem to grow taller as we watch. Wild bluebelles are blooming in my husband's yard. They were brought here from Iowa over 20 years ago and a springtime reminder of our youth. Many years ago, almost every farm in Iowa has a few acres of timber and the ground beneath the trees was full of wildflowers, some bluebelles like the ones we now enjoy. Our May Day flowers were delivered a day early this year-and we hope they will brighten our friends lives for a day or two. Spring is coming!

April Fool's Day

Mother Nature has a sense of humor! April means Spring? We awoke to 4 inches of white fluffy snow on the grass and trees. White and clean and pretty! Moisture in our arid state is appreciated in whatever form it arrives (though rain is easier to shovel). Seems Winter has been long and we know from experience that April may bring more wintery weather. We have worked in our yard on the recent pleasant days, and it is almost ready for the warm months ahead. The flowers are peaking thru and waiting for the moisture and warmth to burst forth in all their glory. Our Summers are short, so we flee the house and sit outside as often as we can. The bird feeders are full, and the patio swept, so we are anxious to sit and enjoy. Time to relax and enjoy the quiet! Refreshing and peaceful, no TV, just nature at its finest. Sunrises, sunsets, walks in our small labyrinth, searching for the rainbow after a summer squall has blown thru. There is always promise of a better tomorrow. We are grateful. No rushing, just peaceful mediation.

NEW LIFE

There is a new baby girl in town today. We are relieved the wait is over and all went well. She has a big sister at home, such a nice young family. They give us hope for the future. And GIRLS-- in our family the girls were and are few and far between, so it is fun to be able to buy dresses, barrets, ribbons, and dolls for a change.

RESPONSIBILITY

Working with the public, you view all sorts of situations. It is curious to watch parents and their children, and you wonder what some of them are thinking? Are they thinking? Parents are responsible for assuring that their children become decent members of society. That should be their priority. It is as important as making sure they sleep and eat enough to be healthy. Children's lives and self worth are enriched if they receive positive feedback from everyone around them. No one wants to be bothered with a loud, selfish, obnoxious brat, no matter if they are 2 or 22 or 32. The older the "brat" becomes, the fewer friends they will have. Why would a parent enable such destructive behavior in their own child? How desperate and lonely and depressing the outlook must be for an adult, who has not been taught and encouraged to become a productive member of society. And it is easier to become that productive member of society as a child grows up. Sadly some people live their entire life being miserable and making everyone around them miserable. Only when their enabler dies, must they then deal with life, alone and unprepared. A harsh lesson! It is cruel to allow and foster actions and attitudes in our children, which are unwholesome. Society tries to keep children from physical abuse, but who protects them from emotional abuse. When a parent does not fulfill their responsibility to quide and teach and enrich their children's lives but allow them to grow into shallow, selfish adults, that is emotional abuse.

What a pleasure it is to see a family that respects and encourages each other. The children are cheerful and polite. And they learn the public appreciates their good behavior. And life will be easier for those children as they mature. Each new experience builds on the previous one giving them a broader outlook and a better perspective of what life can become. These are the children who will grow into responsible adults, caring first for themselves and then enriching their society, and unfortunately having to provide for the "brats", who were encouraged( by their loving?? parents) in their bad behavior.

CHANGE

A difficult process for all of us, is to make our peace with change. No matter what aspect : our personal life, our community, our culture, our country, we are comfortable in the status quo, and even with the promise of the "new" being better-it still concerns us. But it cannot be stopped, but hopefully can be altered for a better fit. Sometimes it is us and our outlook, which must undergo that alteration.

In retrospect, some things, which were devastating at the time turned out to be for the best. It is easier to understand the past, when it is viewed full circle as history, than while we are trying to live through it in the here and now.

It is how we respond and get involved, learning and growing, that shapes our lives and the constant change we are exposed to. Bracing our feet and shaking our head NO doesn't work. Change comes regardless of our resistance.

Growing old is one example. It happens to one and all and is better than the alternative! And if age has taught us nothing else, we should realize how precious our time is and not waste a moment of it in negative thoughts and/or actions.

The worst of situations can be made more tolerable, if we have a positive outlook. To whine and fuss will only make us and all around us more miserable. If we can't fix it we must learn to deal with it, so we can move on.

Change-meet it head on, unafraid.