Archives for category: Friends

Dealey Plaza Revisited

January 5, 2014 //

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy was one of those historic moments when I remember exactly where I was, an event that changed the world as I had known it. I was a freshman, a naive freshman, in college when it happened and our whole world changed in so many ways that day. I’m not one to obsess over the details because I lived through them, one of the first events we experienced through radio and television news, continuous news, in a time when the news only came on at five and ten and we relied on magazines and newspapers for in depth reporting, a time now over 50 years ago.

In May, 1966, some college friends and I took off for Galveston, TX for a weekend at the beach, really pretty tame, but wild for us. Going through Dallas, which was not nearly as complicated then as it is today, we stopped at Dealey Plaza, out of curiosity as much as anything. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were still alive and we were probably under the illusion that the death of our President was pretty much an aberration. Here is all there was on the Plaza in the predawn hours that day in May that we visited without crowds or fanfare.

Although I knew there was now a museum, I hadn’t rushed to visit, so I’m still somewhat surprised that I felt the urge to go this weekend with friends. We were in town for a football bowl game and were filling our afternoon, navigating the overlapping amusement park of freeways in and around Dallas, a city of glass and flash. The end of the holiday season, the first weekend of the new year, and the lines were forming just to get tickets for the timed entry. Tickets in hand, we visited the plaza while waiting. My two friends were in junior high or high school in 1963, so we had different memories to share, because you always have to talk about where you were when you heard the news. You have to.

There are places that you visit that are instantly familiar, instantly brought to life from the images you’ve carried with you, and Dealey Plaza is one of those. The only thing that is really different is that we watched it all in black and white in 1963 and this was a bright sunny Texas day, the site coming alive with color. The trees, young in the Zapruder films, are now 50 years older and obscure some of the views. Turning to look at the former Texas School Book Depository, looking up at the window, I felt a twinge, an eerie feeling inside.

Walking across the plaza, we had someone take our picture, not because of where we were but because we wanted a photo together. Actually, you can’t even tell where we were. I took a look at the entire scene, so familiar, behind us, complete with people standing on the slope.

Someone rolled out a sign and I zoomed in. Like we didn’t know…

We spent the rest of our time before we could go in visiting the gift shops, two of them. There were books and replicas of the famous Saturday Evening Post with the cover portrait of Kennedy by Norman Rockwell, t-shirts, post cards, mugs and jewelry (I guess replicas of what Jackie wore?), and other mostly tasteful items. Having owned a gift shop, I have to wonder what I would think appropriate for remembering this place, this event. Not sure I would wear a patch on my jacket of the Book Depository.

The Sixth Floor Museum, as it is called, was well organized and nicely done. I didn’t take the audio guides, choosing to watch the crowds. Skimming the information I already knew so well, I began to watch the people, most way too young to have my experience with the event, most knowing this the way I know World War II, through my history classes and parents and grandparents. There were young couple with babies in strollers, college students, middle aged people, all kinds of people, all walking along, reading history as I had lived it. Each reaction or response was unique to that person at this time in their life, based on where they had come from, what they already knew, who they are. We were all sharing this exhibit in our own way.

I had a brief flash of my visit to Graceland this past summer, a visit that occurred at the end of Elvis Week, on the anniversary of his death, by chance. Another moment in my life I remember – hearing about Elvis’ death. The crowds that weekend in Memphis were quiet with their audio guides and walking by the grave, reverential. It was a little noisier here in this museum, not loud, but voices here and there. The contrast and similarities of my two pilgrimages was interesting, slightly amusing.

Walking quickly through the history, I came to the site of the shooting. Glassed off so you can’t stand on the actual spot, the boxes of school books stacked as they were found that day, the window slightly open with a disguised camera now watching the plaza, I had a slightly queasy feeling. It was pretty real. You can’t take pictures there, but you can stand by the next windows and look out onto the road, seeing the same thing Oswald saw with taller trees now. You realize that the car wasn’t very far away, that wasn’t a very long shot for the rifle really.

Moving along, there were the actual FBI models of the site and the gun shot trajectories, later found to be incorrect, films and displays of all the aftermath, Jack Ruby’s suit that we know so well from the photos and films, Zapruder’s camera and the film dissected and discussed, and on to the investigations, the books written, the conspiracy theories. The two film rooms were the films of the memorial service and films about the conspiracy. I didn’t watch either, all of it feeling too far back and too familiar at the same time.

I wandered up to the 7th floor, a lovely mostly empty room where you can look out on the plaza and the familiar road and take pictures or reflect. It was very quiet on this floor with few people. Looking down at the street where an X marks the spot, I realized that people were waiting for traffic to stop and then running out to pose for pictures on the X. There were individual, groups, people doing silly things. I don’t even know what I thought other that it seemed disturbing to me. I realized they didn’t live the time like I did and it wasn’t exactly disrespectful, but I had a hard time relating. The bare X was enough to make me stop, stare down from the window and reflect on what happened there, but I sure didn’t want to go stand on it.

Walking back down the stairs, I watched people having their pictures made under the original Texas School Book Depository sign. Again, a little eerie to me.

There was a display towards the end of the exhibits, a board that showed the memorials at the spot where Martin Luther King was assassinated, Pearl Harbor, the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial and something else, reminding us that these are important sites for us to preserve so that we can remember, we can educate and we can discuss the effect of these horrors, this violence, on society. I agree because I am ever hopeful that men and women will someday learn to live in peace. If we quit hoping and only acknowledge that there has always been violence between human beings, then how can we proceed, why are we living? We have to always hope and work towards that goal. Don’t we?

Tags 1963, assassination, Dallas TX, Dealey Plaza, memorial, President John F. Kennedy, Sixth Floor Museum

Categories Friends, History, Memories, Places, Reflections, Travel

Making Memories – the Best Gift of All

December 31, 2013 //

A friend once commented that the only thing we can really give our children is memories. That’s a pretty important statement because it covers a lot of ground. Memories can be of lessons learned, like my mother teaching me manners or how to make a bed, or they can be painful, like hurt feelings or physical injuries or loss of loved ones. He was referring to the good ones, the fun ones, the special ones.

Watching my four year old granddaughter, who has already lost her Daddy and her other grandmother in her short life, I am amazed once again at how much little ones observe and remember. She’s at the age where she says “remember when…” a lot, already placing her memories in her ever so short past. But they are definitely stored there and who knows when she will bring them back into a conversation or how they will ultimately affect her life.

For Christmas, I gave my family a trip, a long weekend together, to Austin and San Antonio. The weekend after Christmas was the first time we could find that their schedules weren’t bogged down with sports or school or work, almost an impossibility to bring four families, 16 people together. But we did it. We spent four days traveling in four cars to two cities with eight adults and eight kids ranging from 12-16 with one four year old.

The gift for me was watching them all together, enjoying each other. We all live in the same city but it’s hard to find time to just relax and enjoy each other. The bigger kids go to school together and are close friends, so there was no teenage drama, no teen rolling his or her eyes at the parents. The little one was silly and the older ones were amused and helped with her antics. The parents all parented all the kids. I just got to sit and watch. And love them all.

Looking back at my own life, I have every kind of memory, good, bad, sad, funny. In all our lives, there are things that can’t be avoided, things that hurt, events and people we would like to forget. At best, we can learn and grow from them and put them in perspective. But, it’s important to have good memories, sweet memories, funny memories, to help balance it all out. My obsession with photos helps me with that. Not every memory has to be as elaborate as the trip we took, but it was great. We have many memories that cost us nothing and happened right at home. And, when we gather, whether it’s all of us or with some absent, all those memories are part of the conversation.

The gift for me is that my family has grown into a loud, laughing, loving bunch where there are no awkward silences, no sulking members, no hateful scenes and lots of the very best kind of memories. My resolution for 2014 is to make more of the good kind for everyone I know, family or friend. Happy New Year!

Tags Austin, Christmas, family, love, memories, photographs, resolution, San Antonio, travel

Categories Family, Friends, Holidays, Memories, Photography, Places, Reflections, Travel, Uncategorized

The Uniforms of Youth

December 19, 2013 //

Driving to meet friend since junior high for lunch, I had visions of us when we were 12 and 13, back in the 50s, walking home from school. We had the look, the look of our friends, our school, our era. We wore skirts to school back then, below the knee, straight or pleated or full with petticoats with cute blouses or oxford cloth shirts with sweaters. Our shoes were Keds or penny loafers or “rock & rollers” (a less clunky version of saddle oxfords), or flats. We wore bobby socks. The years blur and each year had its style. We stood a certain way with our school books on top of our notebook balanced on our slung out hip. You knew how to hold them to look cool. Our hair was permed, long or short. We had to have a certain coat, a car coat it was called, with a hood edged in fur. The coolest ones were made by Thermo-Jac and we wore them pushed back off our shoulders. The minute our mothers were out of sight, we slung them back, even on the coldest days. Picture us, slouching along with our socks rolled down, our coats slung back, our hips slung out with the books. Cool. Or “Stud”…our phrase of the time.

The guys had their own look. Jeans and oxford shirts or plaid shirts. At one time, wheat jeans, a beige version of Levis, were in. Their hair was crew cut or short unless you were some kind of “hood” who wore it longer with ducktails or slicked back with some kind of grease. No longer hair until The Beatles arrived. One year, all the cool guys had red lightweight jackets that were the look. They remember.

I remember a summer when I was about 13 I hung around in very short shorts and one of my dad’s old shirts. Neat. By the time I graduated, skirts were a bit shorter, hair was puffier since we now had rollers and hairspray, and we were preppier. I’ve lived through the fifties, sixties, seventies and all the looks ever since. I can’t find a perfect illustration of junior high, but here’s one from college with several looks of 1964…babushka on my hair, round collar blouse, cutoffs, the purse of the season and thongs (flip-flops now). Carefully coordinated. What goes around, comes back…

Every age has its own style. My oldest daughter started junior high and came home almost in tears the first few days because she didn’t have “the” purse. My own youth flashed back and we rushed to the store. I was amused because “the” purse was the same one I carried in college, a wooden handled purse with different covers you could button on and off, “the” purse of my day.

When my older kids were in high school, a friend and I would sit outside the school waiting for the kids to get out and figure out the styles, laughing affectionately. Waiting for my daughter to get out of soccer practice, I would note the “styles” of each of the teams at practice. The soccer team all wore their socks pushed down without their shin guards…total show of toughness…their hair all the same. You could spot who played each sport as they came off the fields because each had it’s own distinct look.

My son went through every style there ever was. I could do a photo retrospective of his ever changing hairstyles. Always challenging the norm. Always on the front edge of the next look.

As one who lived in the 50s and 60s, I’ve tried not to freak out at every style change of my kids. You pick your battles as a parent and I held tight in my heart all my own looks. From the 60s, I learned that you don’t divide a family because your son comes home with long hair, dyed hair, no hair, no matter how much you may hate it. Hair grows out and they change it again. It’s not about you. Really.

No earth-shattering insights here. The thing I remember about kids is that they’re trying to stand out, to show they are becoming more independent and growing up. They’re also showing their desire to fit in with their own peers. Of course, there are some looks that may frighten us or be signs of some other problems, but, most kids are good, just exploring the world. Remember that this too shall pass. And sigh. And try not to snicker. And, most importantly, remember yourself at that age. And try not to laugh.

Tags 50s, 60s, junior high, kids, style

Categories Family, Friends, Memories, Reflections, Style

Finding pieces of your heart

December 13, 2013 //

When you lose people you love, and we all do, most of us look for the pieces of them we have left. Photos, letters, recordings, the little things they loved. I have a few things of my husband’s and my son’s tucked away in a drawer by my bed. There are little things from my mother, father, grandparents around the house. Most of the time, the things are just there, but a lot of times seeing them warms my heart. They keep those loved ones close to me. That’s not to say I don’t have some of the same kinds of things around from family and friends who are still with me. I like to surround myself with pieces of my life.

One of the nicest things that happens is when you find a piece of the past unexpectedly. Once I found a piece of paper that was the last grocery list my husband wrote. I keep it tucked in my billfold. I guess it will wear out eventually, but it’s nice to know it’s there. I’ve got a trunk in my bedroom full of little treasures from my kids. The trunk belonged to my great-grandmother and was painted and decorated by my mother-in-law for a wedding present. I look in there every once in awhile and it’s like a bombardment of memories.

I tell people that one of the best things you can do for someone who loses a loved one is to share an old photo or memory of them. It’s like filling in a piece of the person they were. I found a box of slides in the bottom of a box last week. They were dated 1979. I must have taken them but don’t remember taking any slides. Maybe I put the wrong film in my camera or was just trying something new. I’m not sure I’d ever seen these pictures before. I realized they were from my son’s 4th birthday and took them to have prints made. We never knew what we were going to end up with in those days so some photos aren’t very good, some are almost too dark to see. There are a couple of my mother holding her youngest grandson, a month old at the time. I lightened them on the computer and they brought back her tenderness as she held that baby close to her. There’s another one, also very dark, of my sister holding her youngest, that same month old baby. So long ago, yet so close in my heart.

There are photos of my son that turn up from his friends now and then. They are good about posting them on his Facebook page, which we keep open. It’s good to see him alive and laughing. It fills in pieces of how he was when I wasn’t around. I keep a lot of things written about him and by him in a box for his daughter to have later when she wants to get to know him.

This holiday season, we all might think about finding some of the pieces for other people, reminders of loved ones. Yesterday, I got this picture of my son, seeing it for the first time, from a long ago slide. His daughter, the greatest gift he left us, just turned 4 and here he is at the same age. It makes me laugh and cry at the same time to see my little snotty nosed, goofy kid with his Wookie cake on his 4th birthday. It’s a piece of him recovered for my heart.

Tags heart, memories, photos

Categories Family, Friends, Memories, Reflections

Holidays of the Heart

December 10, 2013 //

While being snowed in for a couple of days, I’ve been decorating the house. This is no small deal as I have a vast collection of Santas and other Christmas objects. It takes me about three days to get it all out and that’s if I don’t get distracted. Part of the time is spent cleaning and clearing away everyday items to make room. It takes three steps: get everything out, make a huge mess, bring it all together.

This year, the emotions of it struck me harder than usual. Each piece I bring out has a story or brings a memory with it. There are ornaments and Santas from vacations that bring a flash of fun. There are Santas given to me by dear friends, long gone. There are ornaments from projects I worked on through the years. There’s the Santa my son gave me when he was 13, a hand made one he bought from an artist. There’s the Waterford Santa my husband bought me the year our first three grandsons were born, a Santa with a child on his lap. Little did we know that would be our last Christmas together. There are Santas and reindeer and bells brought to me by my precious little daughters. There’s a lovely snowman snow globe my daughter-in-law to be brought me when she and my son first started dating. There are some from my childhood and Santas and trees from my mother, purchased at Neiman Marcus so very many years ago.

As each of my children moved out of the house into their own, I gave them their box of ornaments. That left me with fewer, so I started using a little half tree that goes on the wall. It’s kind of my Charlie Brown Christmas tree, but it works. I have the same Santa on top I’ve had since the first year we had a tree, back in 1967. We actually married on December 23, 1966, but were on our honeymoon that year. I’ve added ornaments I found a few years ago that are picture frames with images of my family and some dear friends, even my pets. I decided these are the treasures of my life.

It’s tempting not to decorate. I don’t have the big parties I used to and it’s mostly for me, but it’s still special and fun. I usually hum while I’m working, all the beautiful and fun holiday music of our lives.

The emotions run through every day during the holidays as we celebrate with friends and family. We’re hurried to get what we want for our gift list and we’re bombarded with requests for donations from so many deserving charities. The joy is tempered by the guilt as we see one more image of a family who will have nothing when we have so much. We give canned goods and adopt families and drop coins in the Salvation Army buckets, knowing we can never do enough because the needs are so great. Some of us have someone close to us who is as needy as the people on the lists, but would never let us know. The joy of the season is tempered by the sorrow of those in pain and need.

The holidays are for sharing, sharing with all the joy in your heart. We pay it back and pay it forward and we reach out of ourselves. It’s a wonderful thing, this season of hope that brings out the best in all of us. A very wonderful time of year.

Tags Christmas, giving, memories, Santa, sharing

Categories Family, Friends, Holidays, Memories, Reflections, Seasons

Holiday niceness

November 24, 2013 //

This weekend, the weekend before Thanksgiving, I did some shopping here and there, getting ready for the holidays. Everywhere I went I left with a smile on my face because of how friendly and nice everyone was. The clerks were friendly and smiling. In the grocery store, people laughed when we bumped carts and made light conversation with strangers as we picked out or favorites for the upcoming feast. One lady and I almost collided as I left an aisle and she joked that she shouldn’t be texting while driving.

At one store, some lovely people were handing out papers asking shoppers to purchase goods on the list to help with Thanksgiving dinner for men at a shelter in town. I gladly did so and was greeted with smiles and genuine gratitude from the volunteers. People were talking to strangers about the big game that night and laughing about the cold outside while they went about their shopping. The people handing out samples of food were laughing with the customers. It was the same everywhere I went. When I picked up a prescription, the lady commented that our birthdays are both coming up in a week or so. We talked about that.

It shouldn’t seem strange or unusual, but it really kind of was. Nobody seemed in a hurry or annoyed or frustrated. Everything was moving smoothly in all places. People pointed to their cars so I could follow them to get a place, people thanked clerks, clerks thanked customers. It was nice out there, running routine errands.

I hope everyone stays this sane, this relaxed during the coming weeks. I’m going to try and do my part and make sure I shop with a smile on my face. Aren’t we supposed to enjoy the holidays? Aren’t we supposed to be shopping for people we care about and doing extra things for people who need us? Isn’t this season supposed to be fun?

Remember during the coming weeks, when you feel rushed or pressured, to slow down, relax, hum a holiday song, smile, and do what you can to make this season, no matter what holidays you celebrate, what it’s supposed to be. . .the nicest time of the year!

Tags Christmas, Hanukkah, holidays, season, shopping, smile, Thanksgiving

Categories Family, Friends, Holidays, Reflections, Seasons

More myself than ever…

November 19, 2013 //

Yesterday, I had lunch with some old friends and one of them made the following comment when asked how her husband was…”He’s more himself than ever.” I love that. She said that she thinks we all become more ourselves as we get older.

Think about it. At 67, I certainly know myself better than I did when I was younger, know my strengths and weaknesses, have fewer doubts, have learned from life, have accepted more, and find more joy in everything.

I am definitely more myself than ever these days.

And I take that to mean that there are still a whole lot of experiences out there…and I’m ready.

Tags Friends, ourselves

Categories Friends, Reflections

1957…7th Grade Memories

October 18, 2013 //

In the fall of 1957, I started 7th grade, a life-changing year. Up until then I had attended a small private school where I was in a class of 24, usually 18 girls and 6 boys, basically the same kids year after year. We had moved and my parents let us change to public school so we could meet kids in our neighborhood. I had no idea what that year would bring.

I was not so much shy as a quiet observer, so moving from a sheltered world into a class of 650 in a school that was both junior and senior high was pretty exciting. I was thin, my legs so thin one of the guys used to call out “Hey Toothpick” when he passed me in the hall. My skinny legs along with my ever changing shape wasn’t so much embarrassing as awkward. Who didn’t obsess with it at that age? I was one of the youngest in the class, only 11, and had been playing with dolls until recently. I was a child, an oldest child, with not many older kids to show me what was next.

Throw me into this sea of raging hormonal adolescence and see if I can float.

1957 couldn’t have been more exciting. Rock ‘n Roll was in a fantastic stage and our favorite radio station provided the beat of our lives. We took dance lessons and learned to dance with boys, cute boys, not so cute boys, soon to be cute boys. We learned the waltz, foxtrot, swing dance and cha cha that year, dancing them into our muscle memory so we could hear the steps in our sleep and even half a century later . And dance we did. There were school dances, dance school dances, and we had social clubs. We learned about popularity and being left out, about the awkwardness of asking someone to a dance or waiting by the phone hoping someone would call. Life was happening and we were learning all the lessons.

We walked all over the place or our parents dropped us off to meet our friends. There was a new freedom of hanging out with a big bunch of kids. Our parents were suddenly not as fun to be seen with. The drive-in restaurant where we had always gone, Pennington’s, was also the coolest place to go for all the teens in the area. They cruised the lanes, looking for the perfect parking place, waving at their friends. When my father chose to park in the middle of them and wave as they went by in their convertibles, I sat on the floor, not believing he was doing this to me even though I didn’t know any of them and wasn’t old enough to be in cars with them. That day would come…later.

On Saturdays, kids met at Utica Square, a fairly new shopping center. Our first stop was Utica Square Book & Record store where we would wait for the KAKC Top 50 list for the week. Here’s one from my junior year…I couldn’t find one from way back in 1957.

The cool thing about the book & record shop (and I don’t remember any books in there) was the booths where you could crowd in with your friends and listen to the newest 45. I think they cost $1 back then. The music was crazy fun as we listened to Elvis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Everly Brothers, The Coasters. Some of our favorites in 1957 were “At the Hop,” “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On,” “Susie-Q,” “Great Balls of Fire,” “Searchin,” “Little Darlin’,” “Peggy Sue,” “School Day,” “Young Blood.” The Everly Brothers’ “Wake up Little Susie” was an exciting idea for an 11 year old. We knew all the words, playing records, listening to the radio, our hearts moving to this background beat of our lives.

Suddenly my parents didn’t get the music or the slang we used. Everything was “stud,” which sounded horrible to my mother which certainly didn’t make me quit using it. We all dressed alike, a uniform different from the one I wore in private school. There were clothes that made you look like part of the group. You didn’t want to stand out. We wore penny loafers with the penny in the slot, bobby socks, hoop skirts for dances, pleated skirts. It was all changing.

Kids would hang out around the neighborhoods, at each other’s homes. We also went from the book & record shop on Saturdays to Utica Bowl where the pin boys still set the pins. We would bowl a couple of lanes, eat in the little snack shop, hang out like real teens, which we weren’t yet. There were boys hanging out there, boys who all wore the same jackets, red jackets with the collars turned up for while. Some of them actually smoked. The kind of boys your mother worried about. Most of them were nice, just doing the teen thing.

There was so much going on that year, so many changes in our world, in us. I watch my grandchildren growing up, going through those same times in their lives with a little bit of envy. Sure it was awkward, sure it could be embarrassing and emotional, but we were young and alive and open to what the world was throwing at us. There was so much we would face in the coming years, but this year was the first one. Looking back, it was a fun one even remembering the emotions, the awkwardness. We were young and excited.

I can’t, wouldn’t go back to 7th grade. But I sure can look back with a smile at that little girl starting to grow up. 1957…7th grade…was important.

Tags 1957, 7th grade, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Elvis, Everly Brothers, KAKC, rock 'n roll, Utica Square

Categories Events, Friends, Memories, Music, Reflections

Okie Girls

October 14, 2013 //

Last week, I went to the cabin of a friend along with two other friends, all of us Oklahoma born. While driving an hour out of town, we started talking about how beautiful the state is, one friend calling it underrated, with a diverse landscape that we appreciate. All of us are well-traveled, spanning the world, so it’s not like we haven’t seen the beauty of the Swiss Alps, the Mediterranean, the Colorado Rockies, the national parks, and on and on. We love it all. But we still feel tied to this land where we were born.

We had a stunningly beautiful afternoon to enjoy all that was around us…I love the rivers, creeks, scrub and blackjack oaks in rural Oklahoma. Fall hadn’t touched it yet, but it’s on the verge.

Our roots are important to us no matter how many times we pull them up. I recently traveled with two friends, one who lives in Tulsa, born in Portland. She will forever be an Oregon girl. Our other friend has lived in so many places, including Tulsa, on so many continents, that she has to put down her roots over and over. I don’t know how that feels…I can’t imagine. She adapts well. What I understand is that we do feel connected to our land, to our environment and we find peace in it. There is something that pulls at our hearts from the land we have inhabited, the land where we grew up. In it, we find our true selves, we’re stripped bare. For those who move around, it must be a different feeling, one of making those connections wherever you are at the time, mixed with memories of where you’ve been. Neither one is better, they are just a part of us.

I will share the places of the heart with my Okie girls, with my friends whose roots are elsewhere, whenever I can. We need the places, but we also need the people. Peace…

Tags home, land, Okie, Oklahoma

Categories Friends, Nature, Places, Reflections, Uncategorized

Blogging…Year One

October 12, 2013 //

Confetti Thoughts is a year old today…that means I figured out how to set this up and started writing a year ago. Some random thoughts…

1. I chose a good name, Confetti Thoughts, because I have been able to write about whatever was on my mind. Some people blog about a single topic, but I didn’t want to be limited.

2. I haven’t messed with the look since I started. Other blogs are much fancier, but that isn’t what this is about and I can just see me doing something crazy and not being able to get out of it. I don’t even remember how I did this look, to tell the truth. I may experiment this year or I may not. I did get an app to transfer photos from my camera to my iPad while traveling so I could post from the road, which was handy.

3. The blogs that I may love the most may never get read, which is interesting. I have one post that has gone around the world and I find that pretty funny. There are others which would fascinate me way more, but it is what it is.

4. I have readers everywhere on the globe. I have no idea how that works, if their computers translate it or they all speak English or what, but it’s pretty amazing to think someone in Korea or Africa or Australia has ever read something I wrote.

5. Most of the comments I get are from friends or on Facebook, but occasionally I hear from a stranger and it’s nice. I also get a little spam from people promising me that I can make money from my blog with their help or things like that.

6. There are billions of bloggers out there and some of them write beautifully, some write from their heart, some are boring, some have pretty strange topics, some have beautiful pictures. I’m just impressed that writers of all ages, from all countries are doing this. I love that people like to write.

7. I love having a place to post some fun photos, which I love to take, and to write about things. I do it for myself because it would be pretty vain of me to think I’m improving the world or something important like that.

8. I avoid politics pretty much because that brings out the craziness in people and I hate finding out that people I have liked so much can get so rabid and full of hate over issues. It’s hard to have a decent discussion these days with people so polarized.

9. I’ve made it a year without writing about my 3 dogs and 2 cats very much and just a little about my 8 grandchildren and my 4 children. Not that they aren’t the most interesting things in my world, but enough is enough.

10. This has been a discipline in that I try to write at least a few times a week. Every day would be too much for people reading unless you’re as entertaining as The Pioneer Woman. Sometimes, while traveling I took a break. Or when I had surgery. I always thought I could write about anything and I seem to find something. This is my 156th post, which seems pretty good, I guess.

Anyway, thanks to my friends who tickle me with their compliments. That’s what friends are for. Thanks to strangers who share the writing and send it around the world. Thanks to anyone who takes the time to read this out of all there is to read in books, newspapers, internet, whatever media is coming round the bend.

Cheers to year two!

Tags blogging, Confetti Thoughts, Friends

Categories Family, Friends, Memories, Reflections