After much nervousness about when the first snow would fall, we can relax, it has happened.

A week into the new year and I am beyond any celebration of the past year of accomplishments or lack thereof or any momentary thought of looking ahead - daydreaming about the future of tomorrow, my life changing goals and bigger than life aspirations. What I am focused on to kick off my 2020 mindset is health and family.

Giving is a lesson that if not given the chance to grow and expand can die an early death. Like any good habit, it must be practiced regularly, so that it will become second nature to give rather than receive.

In a home with five cats, and two dogs, the chances of having a cat in a Christmas tree is just a reality.

A blue moon ago, I learned about rhetoric as I earned a degree in it. Rhetoric has a negative name in politics but a positive one in debate and writing. It was the writing version which lit a fire in me.

Sunnyside will go into my book as the community that won’t quit.

They arrived like a whirlwind, dropping backpacks, coats and gloves by the door, ready to get to work.

Thanksgiving blew in with a hearty blast of wintery character, adding to the holiday landscape which brought together family and friends sharing in the celebration and all the festive traditions turkey day encompasses.

Blessed are young parents of one-year old toddlers with stamina which seems to endlessly replenish. And blessed are the single parents of the world, who show up to actively parent their children.

I was listening to the late Martin Luther King speak on vintage film in my history class last week.

Thursday is Thanksgiving and I know we’re all supposed to be especially grateful this time of the year. I have been unseasonably slow to get into the “Holiday Spirit” and am not sure why – perhaps, that is what bothers me most.

You know the ways you procrastinate, and you know each of your own rationales for dreading and delaying chores. Me too, these unwanted, un-adult non-actions, this wasteful side of humanness. I laid down the procrastinator’s law to myself last weekend, underscoring to self, the schedule was going to be light and easy, no excuses left.

On this Veterans Day, this former U.S. Navy veteran would like to thank all of you who make the time to serve or say, “thank you for your service,” to the men and women of the Armed Forces who have sworn an oath to defend our freedom and protect the ideals of this great nation.

I’m the individual whose 4X4 windshield finds the sole flying rock on the freeway (that was on Veterans Day). I’m also the grandma who trips over both the cat and the pumpkin on the porch and does a hard-left hip slam into the rose bush (that was last week).