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.

 

 

 

 

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.

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.

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

Sophie is visiting the area now, and today she was at my house for a couple of hours.  She had a great time playing with Tucky, and when he left to help with youth group at church, Sophie and I went to the park which is near my house.

When we first got there, Sophie and I had the whole place to ourselves so we entertained ourselves by doing the scavenger hunt.

We have to locate the apple, frog, star, clock, carrot, and so forth. Ten items in all. Or "awwb jects" as Sophie drawls it.  Objects, if you don't understand Southern.

She loves when she finds the objects first.  

About twenty minutes after we got to the park, people started arriving and - yippee! - Sophie had not one, but TWO little girls just a bit older than her to play with.

I had been walking up and down a hill in order to redeem the time and get a little exercise. It's a favorite hill to roll down - or, at least, both Sophie and Zach have rolled down this hill in times gone by.

Sophie asked if they could, and I said I could not give permission for Jillian and Carla since I'm not their guardian/parent. But eventually all three girls rolled down the hill.

Here are a few pictures I took of Sophie in the process.

And finally I had her stop so I could show her her leafy hair!

She loved it!

Toy Bonnie and Cinderella made the paper!

Zach and Sophie's grandmother - they call her Nana - sent us this picture via text last evening.  The kids were included in the local county paper, The News-Record & Sentinel, while wearing their Halloween costumes.

The caption should really have an "at" in place of that first "and" to be accurate and "Freddie" should be "Freddy's," but possibly the caption writer was like me about FNaF stuff.



(No clue.)

Dirty Girl

Sophie came for a two-week visit recently, and we had a great time going to area parks and museums.  We've been under a humid air mass for nearly the whole last three weeks, and perhaps that contributed to this.

Let's take a moment to appreciate the way a sweaty Sophie attracts sand.  It's caked on her!

She didn't want me to take a picture

...so I zoomed in for this one

She played hard, and fell asleep on the way home.  Before I got her out, I took the opportunity to take a few close-up pictures.

Isn't she precious? 



Pictures from The Hopscotch Park* on May 21, 2018





* Beth Schmidt

Sophie's 1st Haircut

Sophie got her first haircut today.  I think maybe she had 2 inches off. I am curious if it will curl up more once it's washed.  She looks to have survived her first cut MUCH better than her brother Zach did. Granted, he was younger when he had his first haircut, but he struggled with haircuts for a while. He never cared for things buzzing around his head.  Sophie probably only had to deal with scissors. 

Zach happy it's not his turn for a haircut

Telling the lady about her trip to Disney

These are pictures my brother posted on Facebook.

Sophie and Zach at Disney!

Zach and Sophie are at Disney World in Florida right now with their grandparents.  I enjoyed these pictures their Nana shared on Facebook.

They were really more thrilled than Sophie appears here.   Linda said they hardly ate anything at brunch because they were looking around for Mickey and Minnie.  Also, she said Sophie kept on giggling.  Awwww.

I love her watching Goofy here.

And hugging Mickey.

 

Linda said Zach wore these Mickey hands about all day.  Good thing the weather is a cool 97 degrees, eh?