When I read that Melanie had died, I decided my post today would recognize singers who passed away, mostly in 2023. I remember all these songs and can still sing along.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Mine was perfectly wonderful. My sisters outdid themselves in the gift department. I oohed and ached as I opened them. The gifts are a mix of old and new. Sheila gave me a new pair of Acorn slipper socks which I mentioned a few days back. She also found an old Girl Scout Handbook exactly like the one I used to have. Moe found a small wooden uke, some toy kitchen utensils and an old Santa. They each also gave me gift cards.

Dinner was delicious, and I have enough for a meal today. I also have some Christmas cookies left.

I am taking today off to do a couple of errands.

Happy Boxing Day! Happy St. Stephen’s Day!

I googled weird and quirky Christmas music as weird and quirky seem to fit my mood. Here are the four I chose from many. I really hate Dominick The Donkey. We play it as one selection on our ukes. I do heartily apologize for a couple of these.

Today and tonight will be in the 40’s. The weekend will be in the low 6o’s, but I know the cold is coming. It is nearly winter after all. Today is a bit drab and raw. The sky is now cloudy though we did have sun for a while, and it is supposed to return. I’m just a little impatient. There is a wind. I can hear the creaking of the pines.

This Halloween I had more trick or treaters than I’ve ever had. I only had two candy bars left, a Milky Way and a Snickers. If you think that seems a bit serendipitous, you’d be right. I saved them for myself. I even gave out all the bags of pencils and stuff. One little girl, after I told her there were stickers, yelled to her mother in the street, “I got stickers.”

Halloween is on the counter ready for the bins. I always think it’s sad when any decorations are put away. A bit of color is gone. I do have Thanksgiving bins so I’ll be on the hunt for them in the cellar.

I don’t remember decorating for Thanksgiving when I was a kid. I suspect we may have put the cute little cardboard Pilgrim couple on the picture window and maybe a cornucopia or two bursting with veggies. We never counted the days until Thanksgiving. The best parts of it were the days off from school and the parade. Turkey always seemed the meal which never ended, the meal which lasted days from the roasted bird to the soup.

When I was a kid, my after school ensemble in winter was always girly jeans, the ones with the zipper in the side pocket, and a long sleeve shirt, a plaid flannel shirt. I wore sneakers except in the snow. The sneakers were the low white ones with sort of pointed toes. They were always a bit dirty even after wearing them only once.

The house in the project was small, especially the kitchen. The living room held a couch, a table, one chair and the TV console which took up one whole corner. There were three bedrooms. There were six of us. My sisters and I only noticed the house was small in retrospect.

In the project, all of our families were pretty much the same. Most mothers didn’t work. There were no two car families. None of our parents went to college. They were the high school generation. Every father was a veteran of World War II. The backs doors always slammed when the kids ran out to play. They were also the means of communication, a chorus of mothers always yelled out the back door. I loved living in the project.

I am so far behind my time today I am taking the day off from Coffee. Nothing is wrong. I have a couple of errands and I need to attack that to do list. Coffee will be back Thursday in all its glory!

I have so much to do today I want to get out and do it. If I am back before the afternoon fades, I’ll muse away!

Thanks for your patience as the disembodied voices always say when you are stuck waiting for what seems an endless time on the phone while being forced to listen to horrific music.

I’m taking a Coffee break today. Nothing is wrong. All is well, but I have a friend who called about visiting another friend who has been ill. I might have had time to write, but I slept so long it was a mirror under the nose event so I am running late, maybe later.

I’m glad to get out of the house to enjoy the most amazing weather!!

I have appointments today so I don’t think I’ll get to a posting until late afternoon. Please return later. I have more stories to tell about Ghana and Peace Corps.