THE DUST WILL WAIT

Clockwise from left.... Mizelle, Sweet Evalina, Red, Dinkum Devo, and Zbub! We are ready.  I bought some crafty stuff and we cut out crowns and decorated them so we could all be royalty as we welcomed in the New Year.  We have snotty noses, coughs, aches and pains, and even a pinched finger in the door (the 2 1/2 year old.)  But we welcome good things that we know are heading our way. God Bless Everyone in 2012. Goodbye 2011.  I'm not sorry to see you go.

Freezing Fog.  Hoar Frost. Weather Inversion.  Yes to all.  No to the Moon Eclipse.  Hidden.   Weather wants to make us all stir crazy and S.A.D.  Instead, I’m shouting that there is beauty – even in the icy barbs on neighbor Bills old tomato cages. Winter’s artist decorated our day for the season.

The smell of fresh cut Fir.  Bing Crosby’s crooning on the turntable – probably his White Christmas LP special.  At church, the story of baby Jesus retold. This is the nostalgia of Christmas past.    I spent hours at the kitchen table turning the pages of the Sears catalogue.  Toys were circled with color crayon. The little frilly dresses were check marked and the page numbers memorized. It was an optimistic game, mom appreciated the quiet, and I never stopped dreaming… even though I knew that my small presents would never resemble anything close to these opulent choices. The week of the “big day” I would tag along behind my dad as he searched our twenty-seven acres for a suitable evergreen to grace our modest home.  Daddy was reluctant.  It was a waste of potential firewood or fencing.  To him Christmas was a nonsense holiday.  Even in the 1950’s there was commercialism and unreasonable expectations…not that any of my siblings hoped for much.  The eldest kids propped up the tree

This is the last month for Janis’s First of The Month hosted @ Murrieta 365.   I've been faithful to my commitment to post this whole year.  I haven’t been faithful to post much else.  What have we been posting all year? Capture one thing repeatedly on the first of each month. It can be a landscape, a person, an animal, a project; whatever your focus is, is fine. It can even be a record of where you are each First of the Month. My theme has been my three grandchildren, Zbub, Mizelle, and Dinkum.   I called it: Watch them grow! This fall grandpa piled some dirt back in the corner where the grands are allowed to dig and play without disrupting the landscaping in our yard.  There is also a small sandbox (which they pour all around the area, too!)  Unbelievable late November sunshine and temperatures sent them out to play in their long sleeved shirts.   I grabbed my camera and followed them out to their favorite spot. I think that grandpa had