Ten Little Celebrations – February 2022

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The little things that brightened the February days…..

Rose bud in the kitchen window. I was happy that the small plant I bought for Valentines has a new bud opening before the end of the month…celebrating some color in winter.

New battery installed in my laptop. The flurry of activity to fix a problem…what a relief (and celebration) when it was done!

Winter Hike. A celebration of the outdoors in winter…and a return to a pre-pandemic activity.

Deciding to move and getting started. We are off to a relatively slow start…but it’s an exciting prospect…celebrating the decision!

Finding my husband’s favorite sausage again. Our grocery store did not have many empty places…but the sausage was one of them. Now it seems that the problem has been at least partially resolved and we are celebrating finding it again.

A sunny day from my office window (very cold outside). Celebrating winter from inside a warm house!

Frost patterns – feathers, flowers, flakes. The frost patterns have been my ‘project’ this February and I’ve celebrated the variety of the crystals that form.

Leftovers. I celebrate great meals that are easy – leftovers! All the more complex dishes I cook these days are good for more than one meal!

A warmer day. When we have a lot days in the teens and 20s….I celebrate a day in the 50s and 60s!

Finding Wick Fowler chili mix at a local grocery. For a while over the past few years, we couldn’t find our favorite chili seasonings in our grocery store - so we started ordering it and having it shipped to us. After a mix up in a recent order, we looked again at the grocery store, and they had it! Celebrating finding it locally!

Unique Aspects of Days – February 2022

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Snow on turkey tails. I always look for turkey tails/shelf fungus when I am hiking…and enjoy photographing them. This month was my first time to photograph them with snow!

Finding some new office tools – Microsoft PowerToys. My office environment is well established so it is very unusual for me to look for new tools and unique for me to find more than one new tool that makes what I do easier. Microsoft PowerTools was a great find. The tools I am using frequently now are Image resize and Power rename.

Miniature potted rose for Valentines. I was thinking of potted tulips or hyacinths when I went shopping (not realizing that it was too early for both of them)…but found a miniature rose instead. It’s a unique purchase and my husband and I are enjoying it in our kitchen window. It already has a new bud opening. I’ll plant it outside after the last frost.

Frost crystals. I have been thrilled to discover how many kinds of frost crystals there are. At some point they will become familiar to me, but February 2022 is my first concentrated effort to look at them frequently enough to see the variations!

People smoking in the grocery store parking garage. Not all unique experiences are positive. As I came out of the grocery store one morning, there were two separate people standing near their cars smoking and working on the phones. They were on the side of the garage closest to the store – maybe using the store’s Wi-Fi or maybe they were waiting for someone that was shopping. I could smell the smoke from one of them as I walked to my car and loaded my groceries even though I was still wearing my mask! It reminded me of years ago when people smoked around the entrances to office buildings, but isn’t something I’ve experienced in recent years…and it hasn’t happen on subsequent shopping trips. I glad it was a unique experience for 2022 (so far).

Thinking about our previous houses…and the next one

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I am thinking about the houses my husband and I have lived in during our almost 50 years of marriage. The first one was in Plano, Texas – purchased about 5 years after we got married. It had almost no insulation and single pane windows…4 bedrooms, 2 baths, kitchen/dining, living room and 2 car garage. It was all electric. It was brick and siding; I painted the siding and under the eaves (and learned that I never wanted to do that again!). The hot water heater was in the garage and was the only item we had to replace in our 5 years in the house.

The second house was in Springfield, Virginia – the result of our both getting career advancing jobs in the area and the organizations paid for the long-distance move. We moved in July and the air conditioner broke down about 2 weeks afterwards. The house had been built in the 1950 but insulation and storm/double paned windows had been added. It was our first house with a basement – and that was where the washer/dryer hook ups were. It had 4 bedrooms (one in the basement), 2 bathrooms, kitchen/dining, dining/living, den in basement, and a carport. It had a gas furnance, water heater and stove. I was thrilled to have big trees in the yard – oak and beech so large a person could not reach around them! I trimmed the boxwood in November … made boxwood wreaths with the trimmings. There was a dogwood that grew beside the patio. We had the roof done and the siding painted during our three years in the house.

The next move was across the Potomac into Maryland because my husband’s commute had become painfully long from Virginia his new job in Baltimore. The house was newer…built with good insulation and double paned windows. It was a Colonial with 4 bedrooms and 2 baths upstairs; living/dining, half bath, kitchen/breakfast area, and den on the first floor; finished room downstairs for an office; and a 2-car garage. It was our first house with a deck rather a patio. It took longer to get into the house after we bought it since the people selling it were buying a house and there were delays. We rented an apartment for about 6 months; that difficulty clouded the 7 years we spent in the house. We moved to out of it before it was sold.

Our fourth house is the one we are in now – for over 27 years. The house was only about 3 years old when we bought it…a Colonial again. It has 4 bedrooms, 2 baths and a loft upstairs; living/dining, office, half bath, kitchen/breakfast area, laundry room, and den on the first floor; a single large finished room and bathroom in the walkout basement; 2 car garage; large deck with part being roofed/screened. I love the view of the forest behind the house from my office window.

And now – we are in the beginning stage of planning for a second long distance move and a fifth house. This time the rationale is to live closer to our daughter/son-in-law (so moving from Maryland to Missouri). We are getting started this week: getting an estimate for some house painting, having a charity pick up a porch full of small furniture/household items we no longer need, and taking a carload of stuff to the county electronics and metal recycle. The things I want in my next house are a mix of what I’ve had in my previous houses:

  • All electric (like my first house) or a path to get there

  • Big trees (like my second and fourth house)

  • Window over the sink (like all four houses)

  • A 2-car garage (like three of the four houses)

  • Being able to live on one floor (like my first house)

  • Double paned windows and good insulation (like the last two houses)

  • A laundry room on the same floor as the bedrooms (like the first house)

  • A screened deck (like current house) or a garden room

  • A good view from my office window (like current house)

  • High speed internet (like current house)

There are some new things we are looking for this time too:

  • Being able to do astronomy from the backyard

  • Roof aligned and unshaded enough for solar panels

  • Within a 30 minute or less drive from our daughter

There will be a lot more about this project over the next few months!

Two Frosts

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I watched the forecast for some cold morning temperatures and put a red glass plate out on the deck the night before the temperature for the next morning was forecast for 23 degrees. The idea was to get some frost accumulation on the glass for some macro photography. It worked - even thought the crystals were relatively small. One of my first attempts was an almost round structure…at two different magnifications.

Then I surveyed the rest of the plate and noticed crystals like feathers, spikes that branched off in all directions, other round collections of crystals that looked like a splash or explosion.

I couldn’t resist taking some pictures of the crystals on the deck railing. They were small; the pictures below are with my macro lens and then with my phone digitally magnifying that 8x!

The next morning was even colder – 17 degrees. At first, I thought there was no frost at all on the plate but when I looks more closely there were some very small areas of crystals. I immediately thought the crystals looked like small organisms in water (rather than ice crystals).

Then I spotted one that looked like a butterfly on a flower with its wings folded. The mind jumps to ‘looks like’ type thinking!

A little less magnification and the sheets of ice with spikes (I imaged cactus) are interspersed with the smaller organism-looking structures.

The temperature and dew point probably make a big different in the type of frost crystals that form. Photographing them has become my favorite February project! So far – each day has been unique.

Savoring February

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February is a month to be at home, not traveling during the cold weather…enjoying sunrise through a window, maybe opening the front door and taking a quick picture. The nights are still long enough that it doesn’t require getting up early to see the sunrise; the challenge is to look at the right time; I like to skew early in the sunrise to get the pinks rather than the later orange.

February is also a month to remember my grandmothers. They were both born in February and lived long enough for me to know them well. One lived until I was in my 30s; the other almost twenty more years. They were very different personalities and had been shaped by their lives. One was my only grandparent to graduate from high school; she had married after high school and had 9 children; her husband had owned grain elevators/mills; she had taken over running the business about the time I was born when my grandfather has an extended illness. My other grandmother told her granddaughters that her favorite subject in school was arithmetic; she married at 16 and had her only child at 19;  she and my grandfather farmed until a drought forced them into town shortly after I was born; the health challenges she had during her 20s and 30s could have been a disaster but she stayed healthy for the rest of her life…living until a few months shy of her 99th birthday; she would have been 110 this year.

Everyone develops their ideas for living by observing the adults they are around early in life…and then more selectively as we grow older. I am realizing how fortunate my life has been to have both grandmothers as I was growing up and then after I was an adult too. The final lessons from them were about growing old gracefully…rolling with what aging brings and still finding joy in living.

Frost Flakes

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Sometimes the frost forms flatter than the frost flowers that I posted about earlier this month. They patterns take on more the appearance of flakes with much smaller crystals. I photographed some of the frost flakes that had formed on the vertical sides of our recycle bin when it was out by the curb waiting for the truck.

At first, I though the ice was along scratches in the plastic…then decided that it was simply the way the frost formed on the very smooth plastic surface. If it had formed in the way it does on horizonal surfaces, it would not have adhered well enough to stay attached.

It also occurred to me that the blue color of the bin enhances the fell of winter temperatures and ice!

30 years ago – February 1992

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30 years ago – in February 1992 – it was a big month for milestones.

My paternal grandmother celebrated her 80th birthday. My mother had arranged a week-long celebration with various relatives appearing throughout the week, my daughter and I were there for the duration. My daughter had done enough airplane travel in her 2.5 years that getting from Maryland to Texas was uneventful, but the week was full of new experiences and lots of desserts; she and her cousin of similar age (the two great-grandchildren) were a pleasant distraction even when they were overly excited!  We stayed with one of my sisters for several nights because my parent’s house was needed for other relatives on those nights and my daughter discovered the fun of bunk beds (when we got home, she told her dad that she wanted bunk beds in her room). One of the enduring gifts from that birthday was a pink rose bush that a nephew and his wife brought; it is blooming profusely (in season…picture from last fall) beside my parent’s garage always reminding us of my grandmother and the couple that purchased it.

Another milestone was my daughter being accepted into the Montessori School I had selected as my first choice for her in the fall. It turned out to be a very positive experience for her over the next 3 years of pre-school and kindergarten…and was the last educational decision I made for her without her input!

Our grand piano was delivered in February 1992. It has been the largest part of our living room furniture since then! I took some pictures of it recently. Only the nicks in the legs from the vacuum cleaner give an indication of its age. It’s had an annual visit from the same piano tuner for almost the entire time!

Overlaid on those milestones – my daughter had a terrible cold and ear infection after we returned from Texas! Between our daughter and 2 careers there were frequent unexpected events; it was often a challenge to not feel overwhelmed – but there were always times to savor along the way too.

Foggy Forest

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One morning it was warm enough to be foggy and wet in the forest rather than frosty and snowy. The fog softened the view from my office window. It’s a view of winter that could also be early spring. But I know it’s not early spring in February; this day is a brief respite from mornings below freezing. The taller trees in the background are tulip poplars. The tree to the right in front of them with the darker trunk is a red maple. The branches even more in the foreground on the left is a sycamore.

Zooming in on the sycamore….the droplets of water condensed from the fog are evident on the small branches. The wet branches are more colorful when they are wet; when they are dry the cracking, curling bark is brown or grey and the smooth parts are white. In the wet, it is easier to see that there are chloroplasts in the smooth parts….the tree can make sugars even in winter!

Frost Flowers on our Deck

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One of my favorite winter macro photo opportunities happens on very cold mornings…when the humidity is high enough to create frost flowers. I get my phone set up with my clip-on lens and bundle up – this time the location was only a few steps from the house onto our deck. It was my first time with the new lens my husband got for me in December that allows more room to work (i.e. I don’t have to be as close to the subject as with my older clip-on lens).

I found myself taking themed series:

What do the crystals look like around the knot holes on the deck railing? I liked the textures of the knots overlaid with the frost flowers.

How do the crystals change when they go over an edge? The crystals seemed to get almost fuzzy…or flattened.

Where are the largest crystals? The largest crystals seem to form around a center…on a flat surface…making ‘frost flowers’. The ones below were on the cover of our gas grill; the weave of the fabric provides a size comparison.

I’m going to watch the weather forecast…see if I can predict when a good frost flower morning will occur…put out a glass plate the night before…and then photograph the frost flowers that form on a very smooth surface. I photographed some frost on the windshield of my car back in December 2011 (below)…would like to use my improved equipment (and skill) in a similar situation!

Hawk on Deck

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I was enjoying the snow flurries as I looked out my office window in late January when I heard a commotion below my window on our deck. I moved closer to the window to see what it was. A hawk was perched on the deck railing. I guessed that it had swooped down onto the deck – maybe for a meal of junco or mourning dove – but whatever the intended prey was, the hawk was not successful. It was looking all around the narrow strip of grassy yards and into the forest recovering from the failure and seeking a new target. Note: There are several pictures where the dark nictitating membrane is closed over the eye.

And then the bird flew off toward the forest. I used the picture id feature of the Merlin app to confirm my initial ID: red-shouldered hawk.

Morning Forest

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Our forest is on the west side of our house; the treetops often catch morning light over the house. There are a few minutes of orange color. I noticed it on three mornings in January…. photographing the forest illuminated in morning light. The first morning was after a snowy night. The seed pods on the tulip poplars provide enough texture to hold snow. In the second picture notice the pine in the lower left, the tulip poplars tall in the background, and the maple in the right foreground; the orange light had already begun to fade although there are parts of the forest interior that seems to pop through the maple branches.

There are times when the color looks surreal. In the winter I usually think of the forest being mostly brown…but it isn’t for these few minutes in the morning.

And the layering of the forest becomes more obvious. Somehow the clouds or the angle of the sun precluded the light from reaching the trees in the foreground on one morning…but the background trees were bathed in morning light.

Deer at Dusk

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The deer seem to always come through our yard at dusk…heading back into the forest for the night. One evening it was a small heard with a male…females…youngsters. The male was the last to leave our yard. They all looked healthy…well fed.

Our area has an overpopulation of deer. Managed hunts are held in the fall to reduce their numbers but there are still a lot of deer. My neighbor put up mesh around a young holly because it was being so heavily browsed; I am surprised that the holly in our yard that came up on its own (planted by bird droppings probably) has not had the same problem.

Birds through my Office Window - January 2022

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There seemed to be a lot of bird activity visible from my office window this past month. The most common ones – juncos, sparrows (white-throated and house), finches (gold and house) - do not feature as much in my photos but they were always around.

Mourning Doves are too heavy for the feeder, but they are frequent visitors under the feeder on the deck and out in the yard. They also perch in the maple. They look largest when it is cold, and their feathers are fluffed.

The Northern Cardinals come to the feeders and flit all over the yard and trees. They seemed to be more activity in January than usual because there were more of them around. We have a resident pair that are around all year but in January there were at least 2 other pairs that were occasionally coming for food…and the interactions of both the males and females were high drama to watch.

The other resident pair that we usually see all during the year are a male and female (pictured) Red-bellied Woodpecker. Hopefully they’ll have young again this year. The birds dig through the seeds at the feeder…always leave with a peanut or sunflower seed.

There was a hawk that was around occasionally. Once it was at the edge of the forest diving into the leaves…came up empty. Another time I heard a tussle on the deck and glanced out to find the hawk on the deck railing – also without prey that it had probably been stalking. I was particularly relieved that it didn’t kill one of the birds coming to the feeder!

I’ve noticed Northern Flickers more in our yard. They blend into the leaves so well they are hard to spot…don’t come to the feeders.

The White-breasted Nuthatch comes to the feeder and is very assertive – drives away all except the Red-bellied Woodpecker.

There was a mixed flock of Red-winged Blackbirds and Brown-headed Cowbirds (pictured) that flew into the treetops of at the edge of the forest. I was glad they didn’t come down to our feeders! There were occasionally some cowbirds that came in the subsequent days; hope they don’t stick around for nesting season.

The downy woodpecker doesn’t come to our feeders frequently; they must be very hungry when the do because they eat quite a few seeds!

Zooming – January 2022

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Not as many zoomed images to choose from in January – I did more photography with my phone than my bridge camera. I was in extra-rest mode for part of the month after my surgery and it was very cold outside. Still the usual January photo subjects have a showing this month: snow, birds, deer in our neighborhood and flowers indoors. Enjoy the January 2022 slide show!

Cancer Diary – Entry 11

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The doctor that referred me for cancer surgery scheduled a follow up appointment for about 2.5 weeks after the surgery - assuming the surgeon would complete his role at about 2 weeks after the surgery (which I posted about in the 10th Cancer Diary post). The appointment with the doctor that will continue my care is the most recent milestone in my journey with cancer and getting treatment. He confirmed that I would not need radiation/chemo and ordered blood lab tests immediately and developed a plan for the next year: periodic blood tests and an ultrasound in a year. I am pleased that my cancer was caught early enough that I am on track to be ‘cured’ rather than living with cancer for the rest of my life.

It was bitterly cold the day of the appointment…but I was buoyed by the results I already knew from the surgeon and the continued fading of the hematoma/healing of the incision. The doctor provided excellent feedback and answered questions…the tech that did the blood draw did a great job getting the needle in smoothly then filling the multiple vials of blood required. On the way out of the building, I stopped for a few seconds to photograph the garden that looked so inviting when the weather was warmer; the fountain is turned off now and it’s too cold to linger but I still like the look of the place. I hurried to my car, thoroughly chilled, but appreciating the time out in the world, away from home. I celebrated that the appointment had been early enough that I got a close parking space!

I am so buoyed by the results that I am feeling more optimistic than I have all during the pandemic; I realize that, even though I was consciously reminding myself that the cancer had been detected early, I experienced a deep anxiety about it that became part of everything I was thinking and doing for the past few months.  Now I’ve started wearing earrings again (when I am not going to be taking a mask off and on), buying flowers every week at the grocery story and making multiple arrangements to place everywhere in the house. This is a time of celebration…a time to be happy that I am healthy and enjoying winter 2022.

Previous cancer diary posts:

Ten Little Celebrations – January 2022

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As I look at my list of little celebrations in January 2022, I am realizing that my surgery stands out so significantly that getting through the surgery itself (the 1st surgery, the reopening of the incision to release blood, the 2nd surgery) is the major celebration of the month! There are little celebrations around that big one: a sunrise and good grocery shopping experience before the surgery, an excellent chicken soup I made a few days after coming home, the hematoma beginning to fade (although it is still not completely gone 2+ weeks afterward…I am checking/celebrating progress every morning), and my first grocery shopping after the surgery (with the assistance of my husband).

The other celebration that stands out this month….more than a little one…is the death of our cat, Boromir. I was glad I held him close for over an hour on his last day….that he seemed at peace. We are still missing him but also celebrating that Boromir was with us for so many years and particularly through the pandemic when we were at home most of the time; he contributed to the positive vibe that seemed so natural…so easily sustained.

And then there were some ‘usual’ little celebrations:

A great meatloaf. I discovered that adding a little olive oil if the ground beef is very lean and using spaghetti sauce instead of salsa improves the texture and flavor!

Red velvet cake/carrot cake for our 49th wedding anniversary. We both savored our slice of celebratory cake…not having any leftovers!

Peppermint snow ice cream. Celebrating a seasonal favorite and plenty of snow to make it!

A new garage door. It was awful to have a damaged door….I celebrated that we could get it replaced quickly.

Snow on the ground. Celebrating the beautiful scene from the windows of our house….and the different perspective as I walked through the neighborhood.

Bluebird Visit

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Last week we had a small flock of Eastern Bluebirds visit out deck. It was a group of male and female birds…5 or 6 of them. They didn’t seem interested in the heated bird bath…just the feeder. They overwhelmed the house sparrows and house finches that are the regulars there. At one point there were 4 bluebirds at the feeder!

The males are more brightly colored that the females. It’s easy to see the difference in many of the pictures.

We don’t have regular visits from bluebirds…tend to see them occasionally in the winter. There are plenty of parks and conservation areas that have bluebird houses and provide habitat for them when they are raising young and away from our neighborhood. It feels good to contribute to the bluebirds well-being in winter with our feeder and heated bath.

Bluebirds have increased in numbers in our part of Maryland over the years that we have lived in the area with the participation of local governments and home owners with larger properties providing houses. A big concern now is the fall in insect populations; these birds need insects in their diet when they are breeding and then to feed their young.

Here are some bluebirds posts from previous years: January 2021, January 2020, February 2018, January 2018.

Cancer Diary – Entry 10

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A week and half after my surgery, I made a quick trip to the grocery store…at my usual early morning time. I covered my healing scar with a scarf and my usual KF94 face mask which was comfortable because it was so cold! The big difference from my norm was my husband went with me to put the items that weighed more than 10 pounds on my cart. He did that at the beginning and then I continued the rest of my shopping as usual – scanning the items I was buying with my phone using the store’s app, loading up my bags as I shopped, and then checking out at the self-checkout. My husband was waiting in the car to load all the bags when I was done….and then he unloaded them into the house when we got home.  It was my first venture away from the house since the surgery….and helped me feel like I was truly getting back to normal (or ‘normal’ in raging Omicron surge time).

I had a telemedicine session with my surgeon a few days shy of 2 weeks after my surgery. Because of the ‘bleed’ and reopening of the incision on the same day as the surgery, I still had the residual purple, red, yellow colors visible on my skin. That will take time to clear. The incision itself was healing well…past the point of concern about infection… and the 10-pound weight limit was lifted. The analysis of the tissue removed had been done and it appears that the cancer was in an early stage…no further treatment should be required. The session marked the end of the interaction with the surgeon and the transition to the specialist that will monitor me going forward; the appointment with that doctor is in a few days which will define the monitoring plan going forward (the levels of the one medication required and the schedule for any subsequent testing).

The incision is healed enough that I can wear clothing that might rub it a little now and it has made it easier to dress…helped to gently cause the surgical glue to flake away. It’s also a boost to my mood to look more my normal self although some of the hematoma is still visible.

I made a foray out into the yard a few days after the telemedicine session to take the accumulated kitchen/spend cut flowers back to the compost pile and to collect branches that fell during the snow and wind of the past few weeks. Another activity that I handled with ease…. confirming to myself that I was making a good recovery.

I have been making my 12,000 steps per day goal since the week after surgery but there are still instances where I feel unexpectedly tired, and I am glad my situation is flexible enough to allow me to rest when that happens. I’ve taken a few unplanned naps! It doesn’t happen every day but when it does,  I heed the message my body is sending!

So – two weeks after surgery – I am feeling more and more like I did before the surgery…and very pleased that I will not need follow up radiation/chemo!

Previous cancer diary posts:

High Key Flowers

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I’ve been buying flowers every time I go to the grocery story since the beginning of the year – so there were several different arrangements availablefor my indoor high key photo shoot. My set up was all in my home office…the plants on a small table or the window ledge…the bright sunlight on the other side of the window. The objective is arrange situations where like is coming behind the subject and to overexpose enough that the background goes to white. I sat in an office chair on the opposite side of the room – usually with the camera on my knee to keep it steady. The camera was far enough away from the flowers for the camera’s auto focus to perform well.

I experimented with composition…and focus. I like the textures and colors that seem to pop in the images because of the whiteness of the background and the lack of other clutter.

Unique Aspects of Days – January 2022

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This year I am jotting down something unique about each day…encouraging myself to notice those things that are not the same day after day. Sometimes it is related to what I identify as a ‘little celebration’ – but not all the time.

Some of the unique aspects would happen every year – a first snow of the year, a 49th wedding anniversary (Ok – next year will be the 50th),  and a 1st awesome sunrise of the year.

Others will only happen once – perhaps more truly unique: a pet dying, making a new recipe for the first time (this month is was pumpkin peanut powder curry cream (soup)) and a surgery.

Still others I recorded this first month of listing unique events were simply rare: fog in the afternoon and a new garage door.

Overall – this is a good project for 2022…another dimension of awareness into how I am spending my days…making sure I am not ‘in the rut’ all the time!