St. Mary’s by the Sea – Cape May NJ(a lovely place to watch the sun set over Delaware Bay)
(Almost) Wordless Wednesday
St. Mary’s by the Sea – Cape May NJ(a lovely place to watch the sun set over Delaware Bay)
All posts by laurahinnj
St. Mary’s by the Sea – Cape May NJ(a lovely place to watch the sun set over Delaware Bay)
First of 2008
Today is the day when even common birds can be new and exciting again – if you keep a “year list” – that is! I had to hide my eyes from the house sparrows and other feeder riff-raff this morning so that my first bird of 2008 wouldn’t be the same as every other year, but was happy enough to settle for this mallard as the first of the new year. The next couple birds were canvasback, hooded merganser, and bufflehead found in the little creek that runs through my hometown.
A New Year’s tradition that I hadn’t managed for the last few years is the annual beach walk around Sandy Hook sponsored by the American Littoral Society – a great group of people who love the coast and work to protect it – plus, they have the best cocoa after a chilly hike through the dunes! That walk added a few sea ducks and a loon to my little list already.
So… what was your first bird of the new year?
Tail end
So… it’s New Year’s Eve and the time to reflect on all that’s happened this year and to look forward to whatever may come to pass in the new one.
Or, maybe, you’re less pathetic than I and are out doing something fun tonight!
I’ve always disliked New Year’s Eve and that need to be doing something, anything, other than what I feel like doing, which is typically …. nothing. I’ve usually had enough of the running around associated with the holidays at this point and am starting to think about going back to work and some sense of normalcy to my days. And that makes me want to cocoon myself beneath a blanket and preserve the sense of peace I feel right now – no parties, no relatives, no loud music or false show of cheeriness for the sake of a random day on the calendar.
I would like to thank all of you who come by here to read my ramblings for sharing a part of yourselves with me and enriching my life this past year. Everyday I feel humbled by your generous spirits and so glad for the chance to laugh and cry and be silly with you all. That I should feel connected as I do, to you all and to your lives in some small way, continues to puzzle me as much as it delights me. Anyway… thank you friends.
My wish at year’s end last year was that we should all find hope and beauty in the coming year. I was thinking then about how we sometimes come across those things in unexpected ways, or unexpected places, or even people, sometimes.
So I wondered if I’d done myself what I’d wished for us all to do… had I found hope or beauty in the unexpected? Had I been open enough to the world for that to be possible?
Looking back through the archives here I found these examples of having had my wish for the year:
January was full of beauty, mostly because I hosted the Good Planets show that month.
February brought the unexpected beauty of iceboats on the river.
In March there was hope for spring that came in the form of a witch hazel.
In April I visited the NJ Meadowlands and found beauty there too – certainly unexpected!
May was full of searching out wildflowers, and one special one that I finally found surprisingly close to home.
More flowers in June and the tiniest of beautiful butterflies.
July brought hope in the form of a little pup named Luka. God – was he ever really that small?
In retrospect, August reads like a month of transitions for me mostly, but there was some beauty from the garden, too.
September and the changing season brought a little surprise from the beach.
October had the beauty of skimmers, and buckeyes, and sanderlings. Not to mention the fun of meeting friends come to visit from afar!
There were sanderlings and the faces of friends in November, too and a beautiful day birding at Sandy Hook.
December’s been mostly foolishness, but there was this bit of the unexpected that had me smiling.
So that’s my year-in-review at the tail end of it. A good one, I think, full of nice things to remember. Some sadness, of course, but just enough to make the happy times be appreciated.
Stay safe tonight and be sure to find someone in time for that New Year’s kiss!
A test
and it’s a toughie, I think, with no color; only shapes and patterns to guide you. So… who’s who?
😉
One last quirky bit
So the mayhem of Christmas Day is done and I can sit in my barefeet in my peaceful house and be glad for the quiet again.
It was a day full of relatives and food and I’ve had my fill of both for a while, I think. I spent the morning at Christmas breakfast with my brothers and then had the in-laws and their babies and family friends and strangers they brought in off the street for the afternoon and into the night. I never would have thought my little house could hold so many! But there was one point during the night when I stood in my kitchen and looked out at the room full of laughing faces and was glad (mostly) for their company; glad at least that they were all together for the first time in a long while. I smiled at that.
I want to share two last things before wandering away for a few days: first a final example of quirkiness found at my brother’s. Do any of you remember those old-fashioned tinsel trees? Well, Brian bought this one and has it decorated with bubble lights and antique Shiny-Bright ornaments he’s bought off eBay or pilfered from my dad’s garage and we all think it’s the most beautiful thing.
Growing up, we had two xmas trees. The real one in the basement was for us kids; the one upstairs was for show and was a tinsel tree like this, but full size and with one of those color-wheel projection thingies that must have been all the rage at some point in history. God awful at the time, probably, but memory and nostalgia make my brothers and I yearn to find one like it again.
Lastly, a poem of sorts, sent by my brother Kevin. He had meant for me to include it here somehow, but it almost feels too personal to do so. I’ll post it anyway, with the idea that most of the meaning I read into it may well go right over your heads. I’m counting on that anyway.
😉
“First Christmas”
Early morning quiet
Lighted tree
Waits, anticipates, overcompensates
Sound,
Little girls feet
Cold crisp floor
Too young
To grow up
To do without
Lights not right
Don’t hide
Tears at night
The garland
On top or underneath?
Mom knew
The tinsel last
One at a time
Mom knew
The wrapping
Ends folded wrong
Mom knew
Blue winter jacket
Too tight
Mom knew
Holly hobby house
Bad words
Stamping feet
Stockings to brim
With girly things
An orange way down
No coal this year
One day, I’ll be up to telling that story, maybe.
Hope it was happy for everyone and that Santa brought all that you’d hoped for.
Waiting
Christmas Eve is my most favorite day of the holiday season and I try to reserve it for simple joys: watching the sun rise at a decent hour and then seeing a dusk come that is like no other time of the year, filling the daylight hours in between with cooking and preparing for tomorrow’s gathering with family, visiting with friends and calling on neighbors with homemade cookies, seeing the college kids from the neighborhood at home and so grown and changed from their short time away, the long afternoon church service with candles and bell-ringers.
Once it was dark today I took a break from the kitchen and drove through the downtown to admire the glittery lights and be glad that I wasn’t one of those people still out shopping for last-minute gifts. There’s been very little in the way of that this year, for whatever reason. Not in the mood mostly, but there’s a part of me that feels empty in buying gifts when so many need something that can’t be tightly bound with a red or green bow.
I was home in time to hear the sirens far enough away in the distance to know that I hadn’t missed Santa on his firetruck prowl through the neighborhood. Funny that I should look forward to that each year like I do, but there’s a certain childish eagerness on my part for seeing him arrive with gifts for the kids who live behind us; I can’t help but wave as he goes by and remember the sound of sleigh bells from my own childhood. Someone, most probably my brothers, made a point of my hearing them from the front yard bushes before bed on Christmas Eve. Brothers, I think, are one of those gifts that takes years to appreciate or find a use for.
So now I look forward to that particular quiet that comes only after midnight this day, after the preparations are done and there’s no traffic on the road, the house dark and quiet but for the lights of the Christmas tree and rivaled only by the shimmer of winter’s brightest stars.
– – – – – – – – – – –
“Prayer
is the pathway
Stillness
is the temple
Love
is the offering we bring
Peace
is the gift we are given.”
-Joan Walsh Anglund
I wish for you peace and the simple joys that only this day can bring.
Eccentric, unconventional, bizarre… quirky!
Thanks to all who sent pics. I’ve had fun seeing what you think of as quirky or odd. I’ll leave the links out to protect the innocent!
(Yeah, mine, I’ll own up to it!)
A drunken Santa…
Just a little too much…
Cheers!
Just plain cute, I think…
Xmas bunnies… awww
Old-fashioned can be quirky?
Homemade is sweet, not quirky, I think…
The favorite… stolen from the neighborhood.
Happy Christmas everyone.
Santa bunny
Just some random bunny cuteness to bring a smile!
I never got around to signing the bunnies up for their usual xmas card exchange and we’re all really missing the fifty or so cards that come each year. Loads of bunny cuteness in the mail every day – imagine! – but we did get this one card today by mistake, sent by someone who forgot to remove our names from last year’s list.
Not your normal xmas card
Bear with me as I gear up to that quirky xmas decoration post – I’m delighting in some other examples of quirkiness!
Is it me or is this not your normal family xmas pic? Before you think anything too untoward, be reminded that this is my brother Kevin and his wife and daughter. And yes, those are real chickens they’re holding – their chickens! I can just imagine the scene with my SIL bringing those little banties into the photographer’s studio along with all her other *props*.
This was last year’s card and the one for this year hasn’t arrived yet, but I had some hint of the *theme* for this year’s shoot a few days before Thanksgiving when the SIL wanted to send me on a shopping run for matching aprons to complete the cooking concept of this year’s pic. I honestly don’t know how she comes up with the creative energy to think these things up and then the time to carry it through so well. How could I not look forward to receiving a card like this?
I’ll admit to being terribly bored by most xmas cards and think them to be a waste. Most I throw away immediately. (Shame on me… I know!) The ones I keep secreted away in a special box are ones like this, or those with photos of my friend’s kids, or the handmade ones, or the ones from special friends or family who take the time to actually write something meaningful. Cause, let’s face it, often it’s the only time we hear from a lot of people and if you’re going to take the time to send a card, couldn’t you also be bothered to write a little something in it as well, besides your name?
😉
Every year I look forward to a card from Joan who mentored me as a first year teacher. She doesn’t write much besides an update on a few of the kids we taught together and the fact that she’s almost (but not quite) ready to retire. I recognize her deliberate teacher’s block print on the envelope and smile at the thought of what news her hand will bring me.
There’s always a handwritten note tucked inside the card from the director of the bird observatory where I volunteer; Pete’s sure to wish me well in the new year and thank me for volunteering for them for more years than either of us can remember.
I don’t know… I feel like cards aren’t worth the effort if they don’t communicate something beyond the standard greeting pre-printed on the inside. What do you say? Any in particular that you anticipate each year?
Wordless Wednesday
Feather Tree😉