One Last Holiday Post

Recently I came across this photo. Yep that is me on Christmas probably in about 1964.  It was taken with my parents brand new Polaroid camera.

I love everything about it.  The real tree covered with icicles. My 'European' school girl look with knee socks and a blazer with some sort of insignia.  I'm even wearing a barret. The flipped hair which was so stylish!  And just look at the TV!  It was my own TV for my bedroom.  I remember how thrilled I was.

I really wish the camera had captured the whole living room. I'd love to take a walk down memory lane.

 My parents hardly took any photos after we moved back to Lonoke.  There are quite a few of me when we lived far away from home but from the time we moved back to Lonoke when I was in 3rd grade until I graduated from high school there are few.

My children and grandchildren won't have that complaint.

I have 30 boxes of slides that I am working to digitize.

20+ videos

25+ paper scrapbooks

Blog books for the last 13 years

And so many photos of them on my phone and computer that I wouldn't even attempt to count them. 

They might have the reverse complaint - too many photos.

Jigsaw Puzzles

 Over the holidays we completed a jigsaw puzzle, as we often do.  The difference this year was that George and I completed it with practically no assistance from anyone else. 

 We were rather proud of ourselves!

Jigsaw puzzles can teach us a lot about life.

Perseverance - if you keep at it, you will eventually finish it.

Working together is always better.  Sometime I'd find the missing piece and sometimes George would.

And 'together' is much more fun!

Looking at things from different angles helps. 

Appearances can be deceptive.  We 'thought' this would be an easy puzzle.  Do you know how many white birds there are in a 12 Days of Christmas puzzle? How much greenery?  How many candy canes?

At about this point in every puzzle we have ever done, we are absolutely convinced that there is a missing piece. We are confident that the piece that we have both spent so much time searching for just isn't there.   And we think of blaming the manufacturer, picturing our missing piece on the factory floor.

And you know what?  Every single time (except for a puzzle we did in 2020...but what would you expect to have happened  that year?), we find it.

Life lesson - When you are sure there is a vital missing piece from your life. When you don't know how all the pieces of your life will fit together, be patient.  One who knows much more than you do, does know.  Trust in His plan, His love, and His wisdom for your life.  It will all fit together perfectly, eventually.

 

Where I've lived

 Every place I have ever lived has been wonderful.

In doing a quick count of the places I have called home, I realized that I lived in Arkansas, New York, Rhode Island and Maryland before I was 6 years old.  Then two years in Sicily

After that the count goes:

10 years in Lonoke, Arkansas 

2 years in Mississippi

2 years in Utah

13 years in Colorado

1 year in California

5 years in Barcelona, Spain

8 years in Oregon

But the place I've called home for the longest time is Boise, Idaho. 21 years - divided between 1988 - 1995; 2000-2008; 2018 to 2022.

Each of these places has something I loved.  Arkansas was home to my ancestors for many years. My roots are there.  Mississippi was where I learned to be independent from my parents and made so many life long friends.  Utah is where I met my husband.  Colorado was our 1st home as a couple and as a family of 6.  California is where we become parents for the first time. The years in Barcelona changed us all completely.  Oregon introduced us to some amazing people and where we became involved with Kenya Keys.  Here in Idaho we learned to expect the unexpected like seeing Santa riding his horse on Christmas Eve!

What will the future hold?  More places to call home?

More people to meet?  More adventures?

More learning? More challenges?

Bring on 2023.  The year I turn 70!

Accomplishments

A couple of my accomplishments of 2023:

I read 52 books.

         

A few of my favorites were The Last Voyage of Mrs Henry Parker by Joanna Neil, Band of Sisters by Lauren Willig,  and Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

I accomplished my indexing goal for the year.  Since 1893, our church has filmed genealogical records to be used in doing family history research.  Looking through these records was tedious until 2006 when the church started a program of creating an index of records. It's a volunteer program done by members of our church, as well as nonmembers, that creates a searchable digital index of scanned images of historical documents that can facilitate research.  There are 350,000 indexers in 130 countries. At the end of 2021 these were 5.8 billion searchable records on Family Search.  An average of 400,000 records are indexed each day.  That is amazing and I am proud to play a very small part in this enormous project.