Today I decided to share some snippets from older posts. I’ve been perusing them to relive some special memories, and I thought you might like to look back with me. The end of a year, and the beginning of a new one, always seems to be a good time for reviewing and taking stock.
This first excerpt is from a 2006 post, and reading it brought back some sweet memories. We had such a wonderful Christmas with our son and his family:
This was an unusual Christmas for the Miller family as we were not together with all our kids on Christmas Day. Some of us live 100 miles apart, with two others about 300 miles from us. One of our sons from Austin came to our place with his wife and two young girls. Then we all went to the Dallas area on Christmas Eve to share a meal with the other sibs and their families, then came back to have Santa with the girls here.
That was a high point of the Holiday for me. Christmas morning is made for little children who eagerly look forward to Santa coming. Of course, I was the first one up on Christmas and had to wait for the girls to wake up. I told them I was up early to feed the animals before we started, and they actually believed me. I also told them that Santa took some hay out of my barn for his reindeer and they believed that, too.
I love little children.
Those children are now all grown up, but I bet they remember that Christmas, too. My husband and I got sick that year, so there was no New Year’s Eve partying for us. We toasted each other with cups of coffee and went to bed to snuggle with our respective tissue boxes.
This next one is from 2011:
It seems like just the other day we were bidding farewell to 2010 and here we are about ready to start 2012. I remember my grandmother telling me how the years fly by as you get older, but she told me that when I was just 12.
I had no idea what she was talking about.
Thinking about how quickly the days and weeks and months hurry on their way, makes me realize that the best resolution I could make for this year is to stop and savor moments in each day instead of letting it end with me thinking, “where did it go?” If I make a conscious effort to literally stop and smell my roses, how much better that will be than simply walking by them.
That goes for stopping to appreciate other beautiful things in my life – like family and friends.
Now that I’m another decade older, I find that the sentiments I expressed then have stood the test of time and continue to hold true. The years are flying by, some good and others, well, let’s just say, “It’s been a year.” And let it get behind us. 2023 has been one of those years for me, and many of my friends, and I’m just hoping for better in 2024.
Jumping now to 2016, this is what I looked forward to in 2017:
Heading into the end of 2016, I say good riddance. It has not been my favorite year with my unwanted guest, Ramsay Hunt Syndrome, who just doesn’t seem to want to leave. My wish upon a jillion candles is to go to bed tonight and wake up in 2017 with no more neuropathy.
Along with a regime of meds that help calm the very angry nerves in my head, it has helped the last few months of this year to have things I can do to distract myself from the pain. So I am making a list of things I can look forward to in 2017.
One of those things is playing on stage again at the Main Street Theatre in Sulphur Springs and working with an amazing young director, Triston Pullen. We are doing String of Pearls, a drama in the style of theatre I really enjoy. It is written by Michele Lowe for a cast of four women to play 27 characters. Our production will have more players, but we all will fill multiple roles. I am really looking forward to challenging myself to assume different personas in the same show.
That was the last show I was ever in. Unfortunately, the complications from Ramsay Hunt Syndrome never left me, becoming increasingly worse through the years. Now I don’t even hold out the hope that it will go away. I just cope the best I can, and thank God for my kids who help when Mom needs it.
This final entry is from 2018, which was a most traumatic year for me:
This certainly is going to be a New Year for me as I leave this place that has been home for nearly 16 years. In so many ways this plot of land and this house has been more than a home. It was the fruition of my lifelong dream to have some acreage where I could play farmer and have some critters, large and small. I had a horse, Banjo, and several sheep and goats, the last two being Marie – the Barbados sheep – and Lucy – the goat.
Saying goodbye to them has been hard.
But on a deeper level I realize that saying goodbye to this home and this land is the final goodbye to my husband, Carl.
That realization hit me as I watched my granddaughter drive off the property a few days ago in the truck that had been his. It was hard for me to sell it, and I was truly delighted that she wanted Grandpa Carl’s truck, but I had no idea how wrenching it would be to see it leave for the last time. It was almost as if I had some unconscious thought that as long as the truck was here, he might magically appear behind the steering wheel one day.
Sigh… the silly mind games we play sometimes to deal with tough situations.
That blog post ended with my thoughts on making this new home in the city and my excitement over finding new friends and having a brand new house. In the years since, that excitement has ebbed and waned. I was just starting to really settle into a new church community and make new friends at the local Senior Center when Covid hit. So, like so many others who have to be super cautious because of health problems, for two years I only left my house to walk my dog or drive to pick up groceries.
Thank goodness the pandemic started to ease in 2022, and we started back to a semi-normal routine, looking ahead to a better 2023.
Despite my personal health challenges, there have been bright spots in 2023, mainly a wonderful family reunion in June and time spent afterward with one brother and a sister at a lake in Arkansas. And our quilting group started meeting again at church. And my kids can come to visit. And through the wonder of technology, I can see my great grandchildren via Zoom.
So even though I ended 2023 with Covid and wasn’t able to have Christmas with my kids, the year wasn’t a total bust.
I do have a lot to be thankful for.
For all of you who have touched my life in so many ways, thank you, and I hope the coming year is one of great joy, good health, and good times. Be safe! Be Happy!