Tag Archives: Life

January in Central Florida: Came In Like a Lamb, Went Out Like a Lion (With Actual Flurries!)

12 Feb

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

March has a rhyme “March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.

In Central Florida, January came in like a lamb and went out like a raging lion. It was part of a historic cold snap described as the coldest in 16 years. Some places in Florida experienced snow flurries and even accumulation.

I generally enjoy cold weather but this cold “snap” hung around a little too long. Covering and uncovering plants got old, but thankfully many were unscathed.

The other plants and neighborhood landscaping didn’t fare as well. This may be depressing, especially to the newer Florida residents.

But don’t give up. I’ve lived in Florida for decades. The resilience of nature is inspiring. Yes, some plants will be lost but even ones that appear truly dead can survive with adequate watering and judicious pruning.

I took some pictures while walking our granddog. The Crepe Myrtles look awful now, but I am sure they will bounce back. I think the row of entrance shrubs will also be ok. I am not sure about the landscaping between the orange dividers.

The amaryllis below I call legacy bulbs. Their ancestors originally were brought to Florida from North Carolina by my mother in the 1950s. They moved with her from house to house. Eventually they ended up at our daughter’s home. I am fairly certain the bulbs will be fine. My mom would run the lawn mower over them.

We have a few of the amaryllis started at our home in the North Carolina mountains. We hope they survived.

Spring will arrive in Florida soon. I am anticipating nature’s rebirth.

Our home in North Carolina received eight and one half inches of snow. Our neighbors were housebound for several days. Glad we missed that.

I'm a winner

After my retirement, I decided to re-learn the canning and preserving skills I learned from my mother but hadn’t practiced for twenty years. I titled the blog Old Things R New to chronicle my experience.  Since then I have been blessed to have six other bloggers join me, DiVoran Lites, Bill Lites,  Judy Wills, Louise Gibson, Janet Perez Eckles and Melody Hendrix

In addition to blogging, I’m a general  “mom Friday” for my author daughter, Rebekah Lyn. I also manage her website, Rebekah Lyn Books  

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

January Recap

5 Feb

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

Well, here we are in February already.

Over Christmas we were blessed with a ten day visit with our daughter.We made low carb cookies and candies together. Working together in the kitchen is one of my great joys.

My mother and I did the same. In her later years mom and I would sit at the kitchen table and chop up pork for Eastern North Carolina style barbecue, peel potatoes and snap green beans together.

But I digress..

We have very poor cell service at our place in Western North Carolina. My cell phone uses wi-fi assist to make phone calls. When we tried to activate that on my husband’s phone it wasn’t there.Assuming we were simply not tech savvy enough, we went to the Verizon store for help.

Many attempts by the Verizon employee failed.

But wait! There’s more.

You guessed it. Verizon had a new and better service plan for us and would throw in a new iPhone.

After 4 hours of the salesman juggling numbers, adding and deleting phones, we left with one new phone, a new plan and exhausted. It was worse than buying a car.

Of course it didn’t end there. We spent the first part of January deciphering strange and exorbitant bills and oh, I forgot to mention, we also had to get the Verizon Visa to take advantage of $20.00 credit on bill, Like we needed or wanted another card.

Next came the big Verizon outage.We were leaving a visit to a neurosurgeon in Orlando when I noticed my phone was in SOS mode. I thought the problem was my phone and began checking all the settings.

The SOS message set off a mini PTSD moment from Hurricane Helene days.

None of the “fixes” put out by Verizon eliminated the problem. Apple tech told me the fix but said it was up to Verizon to do it. Too stressful to write about but it was finally resolved. Hours of my life gone.

Next up- The brutal winter weather in the Southeast.

The frontal rains of the first cold front was moving in the day we planned to return to Florida.

We staged our belongings at the garage door and waited for the rain to slack off. My husband was anxious to get started. As soon as the rain lightened, we threw our belongings in the truck.

We were fortunate to only travel around 100 miles before the rain stopped. When we arrived at our Air BnB we unloaded our overnight items then found a place for supper.

Meanwhile, the weather reports for the cold front in North Carolina were looking ominous. Not much snow but major ice and power outages.

We were concerned about our water pipes, but decided it was foolish to be worrying. The pipes and our house were in God/s hand.

Thankfully, there was no damage except a tree leaning toward my husbands shop at the bottom of our property

A few days later, a rare snow storm arrived. We are in a valley town and the snow tends to go around us. Not this time. Our neighbor said we received around 8 1 /2 inches. Due to the extreme cold the snow melt turned to ice. We are glad we missed that. Once again thankful that our home experienced no damage.

To our surprise the cold weather actually made its way into Florida. Some areas had snow flurries!

Yesterday was gorgeous and walking the granddad was delightful.

January wasn’t all stress, of course. But I think it is why the month seemed to fly.

The month ended with a special evening event. So much fun and the fireworks were spectacular!

Did January whiz by as fast for you as it did for me?

I'm a winner

After my retirement, I decided to re-learn the canning and preserving skills I learned from my mother. I hadn’t practiced them for twenty years. I titled the blog Old Things R New to chronicle my experience.  Since then I have been blessed to have six other bloggers join me, DiVoran Lites, Bill Lites,  Judy Wills, Louise Gibson, Janet Perez Eckles and Melody Hendrix

In addition to blogging, I’m a general  “mom Friday” for my author daughter, Rebekah Lyn. I also manage her website, Rebekah Lyn Books  

My 2025 goal is continue to use my love of photographs and words to be an encourager on social media.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Small Serendipity

18 Jan

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

Reblog

I wrote this post back in 2014, and in re-reading it, I enjoyed the memory of it.  I hope my readers enjoy it, as well:

I really love the serendipities that happen in our lives at times.  Some are so large they just overwhelm us when they happen.  Others are just sort-of average, but just enough different to make us sit up and take notice.  And then there are the small ones.  Those that just happen in a flash…and then are gone, leaving us to wonder how/why did that happen?

Fred and I experienced that just recently when we went to Disney’s Magic Kingdom.  Busy day – lots of high school bands around – lots of Senior Trips around – kids in the same color t-shirts.  We usually enjoy seeing these groups.  Most of them are not terribly rowdy, and are just having a great time.   Occasionally we see them doing the “flash” thing – breaking into song or the “wave” or something like that.  

We had just finished a ride and were on our way to lunch, when a young man caught up with us and said, “would you be my stand-in parents?”  We stopped and I asked why?  He said his parents had just gone on a ride but he couldn’t get on, so…..  I began laughing and ask him what we could/should do.  He hesitated a minute then said, “how about a hug?”  And so that’s what we did – a group hug for the three of us – all of us laughing at the same time.  

And then he was gone.

I told Fred he was probably dared to do that by some of his classmates, but that was okay.  It was a fun thing.

MUCH later, I told Fred we should have told this young man that we couldn’t be his stand-in parents, but would stand-in GRANDparents work?  Nothing slow about me!

Photo credit – Google search; Disney.com

Judy is living in Central Florida with her retired U.S. Air Force husband of 50+ years. Born in Dallas, Texas, she grew up in the Southwestern United States.She met her husband at their church, where he was attending the university in her town. After college and seminary, he entered the Air Force, and their adventures began.They lived in eight of our United States, and spent six years in Europe, where their oldest daughter was born. She was a stay-at-home mom for many years .

  Judy has always been involved with music, both playing the piano and singing. Always interested in exercise, she was an aerobic dancing instructor, as well as a piano teacher for many years, and continues to faithfully exercise at home.

After moving to Central Florida, she served as a church secretary for nearly nine years.Her main hobby at this point in time is scanning pictures and 35mm slides into the computer. She also enjoys scrapbooking.She and her husband have two married daughters and four grandchildren, including grandtwins as well as a great-grandson and a great-granddaughter. She and her husband enjoy the Disney parks as often as possible.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Cooking Collard Greens: A Family Tradition

24 Oct

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

Since October first, life has been a little crazy here in the mountains. Hubby was scheduled for a simple procedure that turned out to be not so simple, leading to tests, more doctor visits and complete but temporary diet changes.

At one point he was only having clear liquids such as jello, broth and clear beverages. I have to confess that the days of clear liquids were a mini no cooking vacation for me.

Eventually, the clear liquids worked and he is on the mend.

What I really want to write about today is collard greens. I have wonderful memories of cleaning and preparing collards with my mom and I look forward each fall to going to the produce market to choose a couple of bunches.

According to my mom, the secret of tasty collard greens is they must be harvested after the first frost, or at least once the temperatures drop into the lower 40s.

This week, the temperatures dropped and on one of our fun road trips for doctor visits, we stopped and shopped. I bought two double, lovely bunches.

My mom taught me to cut the bottom stems off, then run a knife along the leaf stems to remove them. I prefer to do this messy job on the porch but the day was too cold for sitting outside. The weather forecast for the following day was warmer and i stored them in the refrigerator.

On Collard day I gathered up knives and the necessary paraphernalia and set up on the porch.

The first two bundles went by quickly. As I began the third bundle, I began to think I may have bought too many. By the time I finished the final bundle I was sure I had bought too many.

I put 2 bunches of collards in the kitchen sink and began swirling them in the water. Fortunately they had a scant amount of dirt and only required one wash.

I have the large pot my mom used to cook collards in and I was able to fit all of the washed ones into the pot.

Then the nightmare began. I like my collards to be tender and these collards would not cooperate. I think I cooked them for three hours.

Then I had to chop them up.

I use a Rada hand chopper. It does a good job. I love all of the Rada products.

Photo credit Rada website.

Finally that batch was finished and put into the fridge. I washed the second batch and that was as far as I got. I left them out to drain the water off them and went to bed.

The next day I decided there had to be a better way than my mom did it.

I asked Grok if collards could be cooked in an electric pressure cooker. Grok said yes and even gave me cooking instructions. Using the pressure cooker was so much easier.

The cooked collards are now sitting in my fridge and in the morning I will divide them up for the freezer.

I should have enough collards to last until next fall.

I'm a winner

After my retirement, I decided to re-learn the canning and preserving skills I learned from my mother but hadn’t practiced for twenty years. I titled the blog Old Things R New to chronicle my experience.  Since then I have been blessed to have six other bloggers join me, DiVoran Lites, Bill Lites,  Judy Wills, Louise Gibson, Janet Perez Eckles and Melody Hendrix

In addition to blogging, I’m a general  “mom Friday” for my author daughter, Rebekah Lyn. I also manage her website, Rebekah Lyn Books  

My 2025 goal is continue to use my love of photographs and words to be an encourager on social media.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Mother/Daughter Adventure Part 1

15 May

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

As usual, I am blown away by how quickly days and weeks fly by. My last blog was written in early April when we returned to the North Carolina mountains for the summer.

For years we rented a duplex cabin owned by our Florida neighbor. We usually were the first renters of the season and my husband would mow a path from the car to the house for us to unload. While our home doesn’t require mowing to unload the car, mowing the grass first thing has become my husband’s ritual. This year several days of rain delayed him and the yard was sporting the shaggy look.

My husband started the Japanese Maple as a small twig.

Aside from de-winterizing the house we began the carousel of doctor visits, round and round from one doctor to another.

Just as we were finishing the doctor rounds, our daughter arrived for a week’s visit. On her last trip to the mountains, we celebrated her birthday with a day trip to Dahlonega, Georgia. It’s claim to fame is the site of the first major US Gold Rush. People to this day go there to pan for gold. I think it might be more of a lark than real expectations.

On her birthday trip, the weather alternated between mist and rain. We enjoyed a meal at Smith House, but chose not to slog through rain to check out the rest of the town.

She was eager to visit Dahlonega again to explore the town and its quaint shops. Her dad didn’t feel up to the amount of walking that exploring would require, so we declared it a mother/daughter adventure.

As we were looking at the map app to decide on the best route for a two hour drive, we were delighted to realize that Helen, Georgia, was in the same area. We added it to our trip.

It has been years since we spent time there. Then the town was styled as a small Alpine village.The small village has grown tremendously. The original area is still there but now it has sprouted, with hotels everywhere. Unfortunately it didn’t expand public parking. We drove slowly looking for a parking place, and finally found several spaces at the Helen General Store.

I’m so glad we ended up at the general store. It had everything one could want except clothes including an impressive grocery section, a butcher case, a mini kitchen that serves breakfast and lunch sandwiches. Their selection of cake slices and muffins was enticing. We chose to share a Hummingbird cupcake and one of their enormous peanut butter cookies. The cookie was the perfect texture for dunking into the excellent self serve one dollar a cup coffee.

When we went to the front check out counter to pay for our purchases, I was fascinated with this wheel of cheese sitting on a cutting board.

I’ve run out of time to write about our time in Dahlonega. Until next time….

I'm a winner

After my retirement, I decided to re-learn the canning and preserving skills I learned from my mother but hadn’t practiced for twenty years. I titled the blog Old Things R New to chronicle my experience.  Since then I have been blessed to have six other bloggers join me, DiVoran Lites, Bill Lites,  Judy Wills, Louise Gibson, Janet Perez Eckles and Melody Hendrix

In addition to blogging, I’m a general  “mom Friday” for my author daughter, Rebekah Lyn. I also manage her website, Rebekah Lyn Books  

My 2025 goal is continue to use my love of photographs and words to be an encourager on social media.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

My Two Minute Drill

10 Apr

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

We spent last week packing up for our return to the mountains. Our winter in Florida sped by and we enjoyed catching up with long time friends. There is something comfortable and warm being able to pick up the threads of friendship. Of course, we keep it touch over the summer but in person complete with hugs is priceless.

The Florida winter weather was delightful with cool nights and mild days. We savored it. The last two weeks we were there, warmer weather moved in and we knew it was time to return to the mountains. The day we left, it was a beautiful . The sky so blue and clear.

I am continually amazed that a mere 600 miles can make such a difference in the seasons. Florida was wrapped in full green when we left.

Spring is my favorite season in the mountains. I marvel each year at the appearance of tender green leaves on the trees. Our hydrangea bushes are sporting green shoots and I am joyfully awaiting the blooms.

Our front yard.

Our grass (weeds) is in need of a good mowing but we’ve had several rainstorms this week and the clay soil is mucky.

We made a grocery run into town and signs of spring were everywhere.

After the warm Florida temperatures, the cold mornings in the mountains are making me reluctant to leave the warmth of my comfy bedclothes. I am becoming a big fan of the snooze button on my phone.

To justify my snoozing, I whisper prayers for the day. Always I pray for Israel and the surrounding countries. It is such a mess and beyond my understanding. Then other concerns float into my consciousness.

This morning I snoozed until I only had two minutes before I needed to move it. This particular morning, I wanted to pray differently. I felt a prompt in my spirit, “pray for the lost.” Not for a specific person, but for those who need Jesus across the globe.

The times we are living through are chaotic and even frantic. I have watched a lot of football in the past. and as I prayed this morning, I felt as if I was in a two minute drill. No time outs, just execute what has been practiced.

.

I'm a winner

After my retirement, I decided to re-learn the canning and preserving skills I learned from my mother but hadn’t practiced for twenty years. I titled the blog Old Things R New to chronicle my experience. Since then I have been blessed to have six other bloggers join me, DiVoran Lites, Bill Lites, Judy Wills, Louise Gibson, Janet Perez Eckles and Melody Hendrix

In addition to blogging, I work as the publicist/marketer/ amateur editor and general “mom Friday” for my author daughter, Rebekah Lyn. I also manage her website, Rebekah Lyn Books where we frequently host the best in up and coming authors.

My 2019 goal is to use my love of photographs and words to be an encourager on social media. You can visit Real Life Books and Media You Tube Channel if you would like to view some of the mini-videos I have created for our church, Gateway Community in Titusville, Fl.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

The Snow Followed Us!

23 Jan

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

Did you see the crazy pictures of the snow in the Gulf coast and Florida?

I wanted to upload some, but couldn’t find any that were free to share and use. The Pensacola News Journal has some good photos. I enjoyed seeing pictures on Facebook of people making snowballs and measuring how many inches. It was a historical snow event and will be remembered and talked about for many years.

We left our mountain home on January 16th to spend time in Florida with our daughter. We enjoyed our snow days but after 5 days in the house I was getting (crazy) restless. By day three my husband decided it was time to shovel the driveway. I stayed inside because someone had to be standing by to call 911.

I was worried about his safety since there was ice under the snow and as I have mentioned I don’t do ice. But Mike seemed to enjoy the shoveling.

We share a driveway with a neighbor and their teenage son shoveled the stretch from their driveway to the road.

The local Facebook page was very helpful with road updates The main road was cleared quickly but there was still morning ice. When our neighbor ventured out we waited a day and set out to check the road conditions for our route back to Florida. There was still some ice but it was easy to avoid. We ran a couple of errands and it was so good to interact with people!

Two days later we left for home. It was time. Another winter storm was expected on the weekend. We enjoyed the snow, but once was enough.

Neighbor’s table
Main road from our neighborhood

I was sad and happy to leave. Florida was calling and after days in the house I was ready for some sunny vitamin D. But the Vitamin D will have to wait as the weather has been cloudy, windy and cold. We are further south than the snow line and I am good with that.

I'm a winner

After my retirement, I decided to re-learn the canning and preserving skills I learned from my mother but hadn’t practiced for twenty years. I titled the blog Old Things R New to chronicle my experience.  Since then I have been blessed to have six other bloggers join me, DiVoran Lites, Bill Lites,  Judy Wills, Louise Gibson, Janet Perez Eckles and Melody Hendrix

In addition to blogging, I’m a general  “mom Friday” for my author daughter, Rebekah Lyn. I also manage her website, Rebekah Lyn Books  

My 2024 goal is continue to use my love of photographs and words to be an encourager on social media.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Christmas and Beyond

2 Jan

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

Where did December go? Wasn’t it Thanksgiving just a week or so ago? Surely I am not the only one feeling this way.

December was a busy month at our house. Our daughter invited us to join her on a week long Caribbean cruise during the first week of December and of course we said yes.

The weather was perfect, sunny with highs in the mid 70s. We had a very pleasant time. I did a lot of reading and sleeping. And of course eating. I think my husband had four desserts before we left the port.

Speaking of the port, we cruised out of Port Canaveral which is not only a cruise terminal but Space X launches from there.

The large vessel attached to the tug boat is the barge rocket boosters land on after launching. Three boosters are behind the barge. Space X reuses the boosters. As a side note, Space X launches Starlink satellites from here. After Hurricane Helene, Elon’s Starlink provided communication in the mountain disaster areas. He also provided reduced pricing on the equipment and gave service for free to hard hit areas.

A few of pictures from the cruise.

Made from a decorative throw at the botton of the bed. Cute
Private island Christmas decoration.
I liked the ornaments
I’m surprised they weren’t Mickey and Minnie snowmen.

After the cruise we took a day to rest then drove back to our place in the mountains to get ready for Christmas. Of course we had to throw in some out of town doctor visits just to keep life interesting.

And then it was Christmas and then it was our daughter’s birthday. It was a milestone birthday so we wanted to do something special. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate with any plans we made. Finally after checking and rechecking the weather projections we decided to celebrate on the day before her big day. Rain was supposed to hold off until evening. Except it didn’t. A cold, drizzle began shortly after leaving home and followed us all the way to Dahlonega, Georgia.

One of her friends had recommended a family style restaurant there. It did not disappoint. Beside being a restaurant it is also an Inn.

Love that Santa is the picture above the mantle.

We had not visited this cute town but we plan to go back in the spring. Want to know more about Dahlonega, here’s a recent article from The Detailed Traveler. An interesting tidbit, the town was the home of the first Gold Rush.

And then time spun away and our daughter returned to Florida and now it is 2025. The weather has been sunny, windy and cold. There is a possibility of snow over the weekend. One would think that living in the mountains we would get a lot of snow, but we don’t. I plan to drink coffee and hot chocolate, watch the snow (if it comes) and have a pajama weekend. And read, of course.

After thought, when visiting with a friend after Christmas, she asked what i got for Christmas. My mind went blank. That’s embarrassing. The first thing that came to my mind was this.

My friend was a little envious.

My husband had asked what I would like for Christmas and I told him Sharpies. After 52 years of marriage he realized I was serious.

I hope each of you had a lovely Christmas and I wish you blessings in this new year of 2025.

If we get snow, I will post the pictures.

I'm a winner

After my retirement, I decided to re-learn the canning and preserving skills I learned from my mother but hadn’t practiced for twenty years. I titled the blog Old Things R New to chronicle my experience.  Since then I have been blessed to have six other bloggers join me, DiVoran Lites, Bill Lites,  Judy Wills, Louise Gibson, Janet Perez Eckles and Melody Hendrix

In addition to blogging, I’m a general  “mom Friday” for my author daughter, Rebekah Lyn. I also manage her website, Rebekah Lyn Books  

My 2024 goal is continue to use my love of photographs and words to be an encourager on social media.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Let’s Eat-Part 1

16 Jun

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

Credit ChurchArt

I think most of us have a “favorite place” where we like to eat.  For some, it’s at home with all the home-made cooking we like to do, or like Mom used to make.  I’m from the generation that came from that.

My family – Thanksgiving 1956

To eat “out” was a rare and precious privilege.  There wasn’t a lot of money to throw around in my parent’s house, so we only ate out at special times.  That got better as time went on, and going to the local Furr’s Cafeteria for lunch after church services became the norm.  And we loved it.

Furr’s was known as the best grocery store in Albuquerque at the time, so when they added a cafeteria, we were ecstatic.  And the food was good.  We’ve eaten in many a “cafeteria” in past years where the food was only passable – and they didn’t last too long.  But Furr’s was an exception.  I’ve just checked online and found that it is now located in cities and states other than Albuquerque and New Mexico (Colorado, Texas), but it is still in existence – now known at Furr’s Fresh Buffett.

Credit Google Search and Furr’s website

My family also loved to eat Mexican food, and Albuquerque was loaded with just such places.  Some of our favorite Mexican restaurants were in Old Town – either La Placita 

Credit Google search and explorall50.com

Credit Google search and Pinterest

La Placita was known for the trees growing inside some of the rooms or La Hacienda.

Credit Google Search and Pinterest

They were practically next door to each other in Old Town, and only a few minutes from our church, so that was also an after-church place to eat.  Of course, those were highly “touristy” restaurants, and they seemed to take turns having “good” food and “not so good” food.  When one wasn’t too good, the other one was.  And then it would take a change and we had to guess which one to go to that next time.

But then a really good Mexican restaurant opened its doors, called El Pinto.

Credit Google Search and b.zmtcdn.com

It opened after Fred and I married and moved away (1961), but Mother kept telling us it was her favorite place to eat.  So we always went there when we visited Albuquerque.  It lived up to Mother’s reviews.  I just checked online and found it still in business with many glowing reviews. 

We lived in a house just two doors down from a main auto artery, Lomas Blvd.  If I walked to Lomas, and turned right, there was a little strip center there, with a small hamburger joint on the end of it.  I don’t remember the name of it, but they made the BEST hamburgers there!  They put chopped onions and mustard on their burgers, and wrapped them in wax paper, creating an aroma that I’ve never found since then.  I think the nearest aroma to that I’ve found is when we were in Texas and ate Whataburgers.  They are the best!  And their burgers come the closest to that little burgers shop I’ve ever found.  I really loved that place.

~~~~~~~~~~To Be Continued~~~~~~~~~~

Judy is living in Central Florida with her retired U.S. Air Force husband of 50+ years. Born in Dallas, Texas, she grew up in the Southwestern United States.She met her husband at their church, where he was attending the university in her town. After college and seminary, he entered the Air Force, and their adventures began.They lived in eight of our United States, and spent six years in Europe, where their oldest daughter was born. She was a stay-at-home mom for many years .

  Judy has always been involved with music, both playing the piano and singing. Always interested in exercise, she was an aerobic dancing instructor, as well as a piano teacher for many years, and continues to faithfully exercise at home.

After moving to Central Florida, she served as a church secretary for nearly nine years.Her main hobby at this point in time is scanning pictures and 35mm slides into the computer. She also enjoys scrapbooking.She and her husband have two married daughters and four grandchildren, including grandtwins as well as a great-grandson and a great-granddaughter. She and her husband enjoy the Disney parks as often as possible.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Not a Fun Trend

6 Jul

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

I’m noticing a trend within myself of late. I’m not sure what I would call it. I seem to be feeling unengaged with special days. First it was Mother’s Day, then Father’s Day and this week the 4th of July, which was my mom’s birthday.

In the past I have enjoyed posting pretty pictures on social media both my personal accounts and for church. This year, it’s been very last minute and for July 4th not at all. I did manage to share an old post for my mom’s birthday. Yesterday was a dear friend’s anniversary and I only sent a congratulatory text.

We have a special vacation coming up soon. I’m excited but I don’t feel excited about planing and packing. I am normally an obsessive and happy planner.

So what is up with me? I am happy, stay busy and enjoy being with friends. Maybe I am spending too much time reading and listening to books.

Photo by Pramod Tiwari on Pexels.com

That could be the problem. Not enough engagement in the real world. But at least spending time in fictional worlds, I know all of it is fiction.

I'm a winner

After my retirement, I decided to re-learn the canning and preserving skills I learned from my mother but hadn’t practiced for twenty years. I titled the blog Old Things R New to chronicle my experience.  Since then I have been blessed to have six other bloggers join me, DiVoran Lites, Bill Lites,  Judy Wills, Louise Gibson, Janet Perez Eckles and Melody Hendrix

In addition to blogging, I work as the publicist/marketer/ amateur editor and general  “mom Friday” for my author daughter, Rebekah Lyn. I also manage her website, Rebekah Lyn Books  

My 2023 goal is continue to use my love of photographs and words to be an encourager on social media.

Tags: , , ,

← Older Entries