7 Quick Takes (Vol 98)

1.
Egads it is New Years Eve! Where did the year go? Don’t tell my mother but she was right all those years ago when she told me that as you get older the years go faster.

 

2.
Do you have any end of year rituals? HHBL and I do. New Years Day I will spend part of the day cleaning out my office. Also that time will be spent getting my office back to normal after taking Chez Knit off the housing market. That means that some boxes that are in the basement will be unpacked and gone through. I am doing another major purge of the house. Every time I do that I just feel better.

Especially after watching a marathon of Hoarders.

I will also spend time reading “The Lives They Lived” in the NYTimes. That is their year end review of the lives of people who have died during the year. Some are people that you might have heard of and some are not. I wait all year for this particular article. It fascinates me.

 

3.
We are almost back to empty nester status. Shoe Queen continues her break from school but Cartoon Girl has returned to NYC and The Married Ones (plural of TMO and TSiL) have returned to their nest. It is much quieter around here and my kitchen stays cleaner and my food budget is much happier. Although, That Nice Greek Boy does come over occasionally and boy can he eat.

I love them all when they are here.

I love being an “empty nester”.

Does that make me a bad person?

Oh the silence is lovely.

 

4.
I must confess that one of the most frightening shows on TV today, at least in my mind, is……

Toddlers and Tiaras

Oh. My. Word. Every single one of those parents needs a good knock upside the head. Why would you do that to your child. Why, oh why, oh why.

I can’t even blame those children for their horrible, stuck up, obnoxious, spoiled, irritating, whining behavior. No, I am laying the blame squarely on the shoulders of the parents.

Now I am sure that the producers of the show look for the most obnoxious children and/or parents to profile. And I know that there are many parents and kids that participate in pageants who are nice, sweet, wonderful people. I know this because I went to college with a Miss Texas contestant and several other girls who had competed in pageants and they were all wonderful. But I have a feeling that they were always that way.

It is the most horrible show….

And yet I cannot look away.

 

5.
I might have mentioned before that I have a group of friends whom I walk with 3 days a week, rain or shine, warm or cold, dark or light. We are walking machines.

Not really but we do walk regularly.

In the past, as long as there was no ice and snow on the ground we would walk at the local park. It is a two mile walk around the lake, we are outside, we see the geese, the ducks, a swan (once) and very occasionally the really crabby guy who walks his sheep dog. But once the winter snow and ice arrived then we would switch to walking around and around and around and around and around and….

Sorry.

Around the local outlet mall. Still outside but really, really boring.

But no more! Lea’s chiropractor told her about something called YakTrax. He uses them when he runs in the winter.

They. Are. Amazing.

Rock solid in snow and ice. We are back to walking at the park, in the dark, and the snow, and the ice.

Did I mention the dark?

But it is worth it.

6.
Do you make New Years Resolutions? I try to avoid them. I never get through them all and when I don’t then I feel like a failure. I have goals, yes, but resolutions. No.

I am basically a slacker, what can I say.

7.
And to close out the year here is a word puzzle that I did in Wordle. It is just some of the things that I have blathered on about this year. It is sort of scary.

Who knows what I might come up with next year!

Have a wonderful New Year. HHBL and I will be eating shrimp, drinking a good beer and watching a movie.

A perfect evening.