2021 in Review

 I used to do this most years, but got out of the habit. Niki's post reminded me and since I had time, I did it! 

1. What did you do in 2021 that you’d never done before?

got a bike as an adult

 

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

 

didn't make any

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

sister-in-law had a baby boy in September

 

4. Did anyone close to you die?

my uncle died from covid, and his daughter died three months later (not from covid)

 

Miss y'all

5. What countries did you visit?

zero

6. What would you like to have in 2022 that you lacked in 2021?

a visit to somewhere new, or somewhere I've not been in awhile

7. What date from 2021 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

September 19 - the day my uncle died

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

staying covid-free, I reckon

 

 

Pfizer #2

 

9. What was your biggest failure?

not maintaining friendships

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

nothing aside from small injuries like when I ran into a wall or the dishwasher door

11. What was the best thing you bought?

my bike

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Sophie; she was determined to learn to swim and she did

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Many politicians and their followers

14. Where did most of your money go?

bills and the dehumidifier put under the house

15. What did you get excited about?

swimming with Zach, Sophie, and my sister because in 2020, we were swimless!

16. What song(s) will always remind you of 2021?

"Scars In Heaven" -- it was played during a lot of video tributes to people who died last year

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

i. Happier or sadder?

I'm  always sadder when I lose more family

ii. richer or poorer?

about the same

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

gone to more of the outdoor community concerts in Graham

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

worrying about the world and weather

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

We ate lunch next door with Andrew's parents, brother, his wife, and her dad. Later we went to my sister's house to hang out with my family.

Christmas 2021

21. What was your favorite TV program?

NCIS, I suppose

22. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

I don't think so

23. What was the best book you read?

I read over 200 books so it's hard to remember what all I read. I just skimmed through about five or six months of my books and remembered I liked these quite well. But there are others that were really good, too!

Radar Girls by Sara Ackerman

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

An Unlikely Spy by Rebecca Starford

The Last Green Valley by Mark Sullivan

24. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Our local meteorologist Christian Morgan posted this video of himself singing, and I really enjoyed it. His band is called Bantum Rooster.

25. What did you want and get?

 a bike

26. What was your favorite film of this year?

I think I watched one: Hidden Figures, and I enjoyed it! Great story!

27. What did you do on your birthday?

I looked at my calendar, and it must not have been anything out of the ordinary though my dad brought me some cheesecake or something like that.

 

28. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2021? 

 

comfortable

29. What kept you sane?

prayer; family

30. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I made contact with Heather Lende after reading two of her books. I didn't especially "fancy" her, but I enjoyed her writings.

31. What political issue stirred you the most?

probably the January 6th stuff; all of the "Big Lie" talk

32. Who did you miss?

after my uncle died, I really missed seeing his comments on Facebook

33. Who was the best new person you met?

Jonathan

34. Tell a valuable life lesson you learned in 2021.

Not all who claim to be pro-life want to inconvenience themselves enough to protect vulnerable lives, and not all who are pro-choice want to "follow the science" when it comes to abortion. There's a lot of hypocrisy and room for improvement among most all of us, but this topic just stood out to me in 2021.

 

 

 

 

More 2020 Sadness

I was nearly at Aldi around noon today when I got a call from my mom. Usually we text so I figured she had more information she wanted to share than she had time or inclination to type.

Unfortunately, it was the sad news that my dad's sister, my aunt Dorothy, had died while at the dentist this morning. She was a few weeks shy of 71.

I don't know all the details or even if this part is correct, but what Mama told me is that Dorothy was in the dentist chair, said she couldn't breathe, then had a heart attack. They tried CPR, but couldn't bring her back.  (In all this, I feel so bad for the dentist staff as well...that had to be so hard for them!)

Hard to believe my aunt is now with Christ! I was with my dad on Monday when he called her and I heard her because my dad likes to talk with his phone on speaker sometimes. I'm glad of that now since I was able to hear her. She was frying squash, and they chatted about 5 minutes or so.

My dad checks on his siblings nearly every day - whether by a brief call or text.

The officer who came to my parents' house - after first calling - said that they found my dad through Dorothy's cell phone contacts, and he looked to be the one she chatted/texted with the most. And the one who said "I love you."

Indeed my dad got to looking at their last texts - which were from last night, and Dorothy ended it with an "I love you," and he replied the same.

My aunt was widowed several years ago, and my dad made sure if she didn't have food that day, he'd drive to her house with food! He'd have my mom fix her things, he'd fix her things, he'd take candy and ice cream. I remember he said she really enjoyed butter pecan. And also Tootsie pops (suckers).

She had just been at my parents' house, in the driveway, yesterday as my dad had some food for her. She'd even bought a watermelon for herself and brought half for my dad. She text to tell him she made it home safely, and later that night that it was lightning. Those were among their last words to each other. 

Little did anyone know, within 10 hours or so, she would be gone from this life.

I've comforted myself today thinking of her happy, pain-free, welcomed to heaven by her loving grandparents and husband, Bobby - who called her "Red." They both were red heads, but I remember Uncle Bobby calling her Red.

I have probably posted some of these pictures before, but I wanted to share them again, on this post dedicated my aunt, Dorothy, on her Home-going day.

I updated my Ancestry family tree and it was really somber adding her to it, and having to add 31 Jul 2020 as her date of death.

2020 continues to be a tough, tough year.

( I was going to caption some of these pictures, but Blogger has changed and made it so much harder to add pictures or captions. Thanks, Blogger!)

Book from Bill

My dad knew he had a book that his Air Force friend Bill gave him when the two were leaving the base where they had become friends. In this book is the most thoughtful inscription. I typed it up because it's hard to read these pictures, and I wanted to keep the words in memory of William H. Zahrndt, my dad's friend.

To David B. Fuqua, a unique and exemplary man in every way, as a token of my esteem, I give this book to you and the very act of giving it becomes a salutation for all that you are.

Never in the Air Force or in civilian life have I met one with such admirable qualities and traits which I, frail human that I am, have tried and failed to achieve. You are living proof that the goals I sought can be attained.

Thus, knowing you has served, in a rather unorthodox manner, as an inspiration to me.

(continued on back flyleaf)

While some may show scorn or derision for your dedicated and sometimes ascetic manner, I can only praise you for it.

All your admirable qualities, e.g., your incurable optimism, your patient and understanding manner,  your staunch resistance to worldly temptations and all the other outstanding traits with which your Creator has so richly endowed you, these I can only stand by and admire and, yes, perhaps even envy. But be that as it may, my only words of advice to you is to persevere and not be influenced by the ways of the crowd.

Knowing you has been a pleasure, an honor and yes, a privilege. May you continue to walk with God throughout your life; and most of all, as we have helped each other, may God help us both to attain the faith "to move mountains" and overcome the world as Christ did on the Cross.

Your war-ravaged

life-weary pal,

William

Selfies and USAF pics

Yesterday was my birthday, and I was a bit sad about not having Michael or Zach and Sophie around to take selfies with me as we've done occasionally in past years (not every year, but some.) I was walking around the property behind our house which belongs to Andrew's parents who live beside us, and enjoyed seeing these clouds from the west. They later gave us a half inch of rain, and we'd already had nearly 2 inches earlier in the day (thankfully, most of it in the wee morning hours so it didn't make the whole day rainy.)


I was in a bit of a silly mood and decided if the kids weren't around for pictures, I'd take some with the horse. Only I'm not really brave around animals so I wouldn't get super-close to Skip in case he decided to bite me. I did manage a couple, and was so amused by this one that I doctored it up with text and graphics, and shared it on my Facebook story.

When you hit the fire on your phone, it kind of sparked like you were getting burned which I thought was cute.

Thankfully, Sophie and Zach did call later, and Sophie stuck around for about 40 minutes of Messenger games and these: 

It was a joy to hang out with her! I miss taking her places and watching her interact with all the "best friends" she makes at parks and museums. 



I was visiting my parents today, and my dad showed me this picture of his Air Force friend from when Bill was back home in South Dakota after their military days. He's the one I mentioned a few posts ago. I took a close-up of the small picture in order to focus on Bill.

I also saw this newspaper clipping of my dad which I wanted to save and compare to the yearbook picture I found at Ancestry earlier this week.

Sorting Finds and Gadets

Earlier this year I went to my parents' house several times, and we enjoyed sorting through old pictures they had collected over the years. Included were several files that my grandmother had kept, and I found letters my mom had written her parents and siblings while she attended boarding school 600 miles from them.


This Valentine included a tiny picture of her, and she sent it home to her parents and little brother. (The two boys born after her were at boarding school with her at this point. She's the oldest of 4.) The picture is about the size of a fat thumb, and the valentine says something about "be my Valentine." I thought it was a cute especially seeing my mom's photo on it.

I sorted many things at my parents' house into piles for each of my siblings, but I took a lot home with me to sort as well.


Something for Daniel's pile. He was a huge Hulk fan back in the day. This looks to be Hulk and David Banner. See how, ahem, muscular the Hulk is? 

For awhile my upstairs had little piles like this where I sorted things into Pictures of Mema, Pictures of Mama, Pictures of Me, on and on.  I had Papers about Mema and Pop, Papers about Pop's Parents, Letters from Momzi, and so forth. I even had smaller piles of pictures to send my uncles or cousins. Even some extended family got fun mail because Momzi (my great-grandmother) often mentioned her children and grandchildren so my mom's cousins greatly enjoyed letters from loved ones gone way too soon.

Among all this stuff, I found this cute letter from my mom's youngest brother:

Here is her brother playing with some cousins in South Carolina. The family liked this when I posted it on Facebook a couple months ago.

And, of course, the Mystery Lady who was among my grandmother's pictures. I wonder if she is an aunt. My sister pointed out how much like HER this aunt looks...different hair, but I can totally see that! Even Will and Michael said, "is that you?" when shown this picture!

I found this cute picture of me and Pop.

And here is a picture of my dad's family with my dad looking disgruntled for sure!

My brother started going through old video tapes, and recorded parts of them on his phone, and then shared snippets with our immediate family on Messenger. We had some good laughs at those. His doing that prompted me to find a cassette tape Daniel and I made over two decades ago on a stereo-system my dad had at the time. I remember it had a way to record our voices and then we'd play the tape and record our voices again, and again, and again. Each time we did a different part...and we're not all that great, but it was fun playing this final recording and hearing something that sounded like at least 6 people were singing, but NO, it was just us!   I'm not sure this will upload and play correctly, but here is a bit of that.

I took the video on my phone, and I videoed the stereo that was playing this cassette so ... 

By contrast, my mom and her dad used to sing together in church, and while I'm not in love with how super-high this song (chorus part) is for my mom, I love hearing her and Pop singing here!  He was such a joyful person; the world definitely needs more folks like him in this oft-gloomy world!


My mom was 20, and her dad was 45. She actually was not married at this time so the Fuqua is not correct for the time of the recording, but is for when it was labeled and emailed to her (which was sometime in the last couple of years).  And she used to sing at this church for years after she was married, and, thus, a Fuqua so, there's that.

Speaking of gadgets - 'cause I kind of was with talk of stereos, right? -, I downloaded Zoom for Andrew the other night because the church youth leaders were wanting to hang out since they'd not seen each other in a few weeks. Andrew normally loves being with these people, but quite honestly, Zoom was a bit overwhelming for him.

He said he much prefers in-person visits with these dear folks!

Graduation Picture and Silly Faces (again)

I think I shared this picture of my grandmother before, but since we are nearly in the graduation season, I'll post it again.  My grandmother - Mary Kay* - is to the right of the little girl in the front.

* Kay was her last name before she married, not a double-called-by name that is common with the name Mary




Also, Sophie called us the night of her birthday, and we did more of these faces. Here are some good ones of her and Andrew.


She looks a lot like her mom in this one. Not that Megan wears much make up or has colorful hair, but still...

attitude! 

yikes! 

Oh my! 

Cool dudes

Andrew liked this one of himself as a hand

Sophie recently pulled her second tooth. Neither time did she tell anyone it was loose!  The dog on her head is also showing off missing teeth...rather creepy-looking to me, but it's just a Messenger Effect.  Andrew's face!!  At least he has all his teeth, right?

Tidbits

 Today is Sophie's 6th birthday! I miss hanging out with her so much, but thankfully we've chatted a few times and did these funny Messenger "effects" to make ourselves look . . . bizarre!

Sophie and Susie

When life gives you lemons, make . . . faces?

New looks

Here's one with Andrew:

Looking awesome

Also, recently I saw this Easter bunny challenge on Facebook so I decided to collect weeds in my own yard. Here is the example from Facebook:

And here's mine. I had to take the plants inside because it was a very breezy day. I was coughing afterward so I think I was allergic to a couple of those weeds.  I think the rosebud adds a nice touch, don't you?  I've become a little sad for some of my northern friends who claim they don't have grass or any flowers so far this year. I know they have beautiful snowy landscapes in winter whereas we ... usually don't, but I would rather have late falls and early springs than to live in leafless and flowerless areas for much of the year. IT'S APRIL! BRING ON THE FLOWERS AND GRASS!

The week before Easter Sunday, we'd been warned for days that there was a good possibility of very strong/severe storms that had a history of producing tornadoes. The weather folks were saying the conditions were good for a strong storm based on the "ingredients" they saw that were coming together.

My brother and I grew up watching educational videos including those on the weather, especially fascinating things like tornadoes. I recall a regular thunderstorm might pop up, and we'd hide in my mom's walk in closet with our Bibles, singing hymns as if we would be delivered from a tornado just like God got Paul and Silas out of jail with an earthquake. Only, we didn't want the walls to come down for us. We were fine with things staying as is - with our house intact and our lives spared.

Anyway...so ever since then I've been wary of tornadoes as are, I'm sure, much of the population.



I'd heard tips about wearing bicycle helmets and shoes and putting pillows, blankets, and clothes over you in case of a tornado. The timing of the storm was such that it was coming to our area anywhere between, like, 3 and 11 in the morning. Friends in Athens, Georgia, were planning to sleep in the basement.  We don't have a basement nor an interior room with no windows in this house, so I prepared a safe space for us in a place that I hoped would be ok if a tree fell on the house. I put Andrew's bike helmets there, my shoes, our go bags, along with the pillows and afghans I keep on the couch. We set our phones to received Emergency Alerts, and went to bed rather late. I was nervous so I didn't fall asleep until after midnight.


I woke around 3:00 and saw the storms were still a good ways off. Our local weather teams were keeping track and offering Facebook Lives for those too nervous to sleep. I checked in and saw where the line was, and went back to bed. Woke again around 5:30, checked the phone again and the storms were in the next county so I stayed up, keeping tabs on everything from our safe space while Andrew snoozed awhile longer. I had just walked into the bedroom to wake him up when our phones both alerted us to Tornado Warnings nearby, and Andrew was awake anyway. He said the lightning woke him.

We went into the living room, kept watching the news, and put on our protective gear. You can see I snapped this picture around 6:18. Andrew was putting on his shoes.

Andrew occasionally looked out at the storm whereas I told him to get away from the windows since we have some tall trees in the back and I didn't want one crashing down on him.  Finally we saw that our area was clear of the line of storms, but, wait....there was suddenly a Tornado Warning for southern Alamance County near Sutphin (near Saxapahaw and Snow Camp). Later it was confirmed as an EF1 and not just a radar-indicated tornado which sometimes doesn't actually get to the ground.  Thankfully no one was killed or injured that I heard, but I did see pictures of property damage. And some friends in South Carolina had a stronger tornado hit their area in Seneca. And still worse were storms in, I believe, Mississippi and Alabama. It was a great time if you like severe weather.


Between that (which actually brought down fewer limbs and sticks and we kept our electricity) and the roaring wind a few nights before (see previous post), I've picked up a lot of sticks in our yard lately. As I toss those in a trash can for the city to pick up, or in a pile somewhere, I often think about books I've read where people gather sticks for fires, so they can cook and eat, or heat water and clean. I thought of some areas where they've used all the wood they can find because they cut down their trees so there is no longer sticks that fall to the ground. I think of those people in past years (I want to say especially in parts of North Korea), and wonder about the blessings of trees. Even if you don't like picking up all those sticks strewn across the yard, trees are nice for the most part.


In one other, totally unrelated, tidbit for this post, I posted this picture for my mom last week. She didn't ask me to, but she went along with it. There was that Facebook thing which I actually loved because it was so funny seeing some of my friends' graduation pictures, and she couldn't find her yearbook, but had this 8x10 of her with most of her classmates, and I zoomed up to get mostly her in the shot. So, here's my mom in 1969 when she graduated from high school (which she loved.) I loved high school, too, but not so much my graduation picture. I don't think I ordered the ones the school did, but had some taken at Olan Mills.