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Category Archives: Holidays
First Day of the Last Month
It looks like we might have our first significant snow storm of the season tomorrow. Of course that prediction could easily change, but I rescheduled a long-distance appointment anyway. As always, over the last month or so the geese in … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Autumn, Cooking, Dogs, Food, Holidays, House plants, nature, Perspective, Seasons, senior musings, The Urban Porch, The Urban Porch ™, Uncategorized, Views From he Urban Porch ™, Weather, Winter
Tagged December, End of November, fallen leaves, impending snow, intention, Japanese Maple, medicine card, missing loved ones, move with intention, murmurations, my red tree, northern lights, one flower standing, onward, Papi-Chi, papillon, The Antelope
1 Comment
Arrival of the Junco
A friend of mine stated that when the Dark-eyed Juncos show up at the bird feeder, Winter is surely on the way. They have arrived in all their rotund fluffiness, an announcement that Autumn is trucking right along. Although it … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Autumn, Gardening, Holidays, nature, Perspective, Photography, Seasons, senior musings, The Urban Porch, The Urban Porch ™, treasures, Uncategorized, Views From he Urban Porch ™
Tagged Arrival of the Junco, Autumn, Dark-eyed Junco, fading foliage, Fall, Fence Dinosaur, geese migration, Halloween, last colors of autumn, papillon, winter is not far off
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The Panettone
She’s been gone many years now, but every December I can still hear my mother’s voice in my head talking about the panettone. “Would you like this nice panettone?” “Here, take this lovely panettone home!” She would offer, urge, somewhat … Continue reading
Posted in Are you kidding me?, baking, Food, Holidays, Humor, Perspective, Seasons, senior musings, Uncategorized, Weird
Tagged Christmas, holiday customs, i hate raisins, italian raisin cake, my italian mother, pannetone, regifting the pannetone, the gift pass on, who eats this stuff?, who likes pannetone
4 Comments
Diversions – A Few November Details and Images
I’ve stopped watching and reading most of the news these days. Never one to hide my head in the sand, at this point I’m saturated and have had enough. All this angst in the media can’t be healthy. My gaze … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Autumn, Cooking, Coping, Food, Gardening, Holidays, nature, Perspective, Seasons, senior musings, treasures, Uncategorized, Weather, Weird
Tagged black and red cowboy boots, childhood memories, cloud dolphins, cloud whales, deities, ghost cat, halvah honeycomb icecream, lenticular clouds, light a candle, media anxiety, off-loading my cowboy boots, plantar fascia tear, prayers for my mother, radioactive dinosaur, seed catalogs, shakshuka, super moon, thanksgiving snow, the beast from 20000 fathoms
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Retrograde
Whenever a string of mishaps and unfortunate events of daily living transpire, inevitably someone I know will say “Mercury must be in retrograde.” Considering the backward-moving appearance of Mercury that occurs a few times a year is merely an optical … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Are you kidding me?, Autumn, Coping, Dogs, Earworm of the day, Friends, Holidays, Perspective, Seasons, senior musings, The Urban Porch, The Urban Porch ™, treasures, Uncategorized, Views From he Urban Porch ™
Tagged a string of mishaps, Autumn blessings, everything is broken, Halloween, homecoming parade, look for the light, mercury, my sick papillon, nostalgia, parade, retrograde, when things go wrong all at once
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The Lanyard
I have pulled up this poem by Billy Collins – “The Lanyard” – every Mother’s Day, year after year. Although some of the technology has changed over time since it was written (for the current generation, typewriter and dictionary for … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Flashback, Holidays, Perspective, Regrets, senior musings, treasures, Uncategorized
Tagged Billy Collins, Childhood, craft for mom, gift for my mom, I hope you knew, I miss you, Memories, mother love, Mother's Day, poetry, summer camp, summer camp craft, The Lanyard, unconditional love, wish you were here, woven
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Summing Up Twenty-three
Every time it gets to the last days of writing for the year, I visualize a cartoon of myself wiping my brow and saying “Whew! Made it! So here we are again. I’m scrolling back over the posts for this year … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, baking, Birds, Bucket List, Cooking, Coping, Dogs, Earworm of the day, Flashback, Food, Holidays, Perspective, Seasons, senior musings, The Urban Porch, The Urban Porch ™, Uncategorized
Tagged 2023, aging, another year, baking fail, Christmas, dead monsters, earworms, end of the year, Holidays, letting go, New Year, senior musings, senior reflections, summing up, the holiday curse, whew!
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Book of Joys
And so we slowly move past the holidays and begin wrapping up another year. There will be a temporary reprieve from the Labels of Guilt – that onslaught of personalized address labels from good environmental causes, children’s hospitals and international … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Flashback, grief, Holidays, Perspective, senior musings, treasures, treasures, Winter
Tagged book of joy, books, darkness and light, diaries, end of the year, grief and joy, happiness, holiday gifts, journaling, Joy, labels of guilt, Memories, old diaries, the guilt factor, The Holidays, the written word, too many labels, venting, writing, writing journals
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Random in the Rain
I’m sitting here at the computer, eating a very yummy but particularly stinky combination of melted goat cheese “brie” topped with last season’s harvest of honey from my brother’s hives, with a scattering of Spanish almonds on top. It is … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Autumn, baking, Cooking, Food, Holidays, nature, Perspective, Seasons, senior musings, The Urban Porch, The Urban Porch ™, Uncategorized, Winter
Tagged chevre dish, cozy like a dog, dutch baby breakfast, dutch baby sunday, flashbacks of youth, last of the leaves, making autumn last, melted goat cheese, my foodie thoughts, my red tree, odd memories, what ever happened to
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A Holiday To-Do List
It’s that time of year again. I don’t know where this list originated, but it’s a great one concerning holiday spirit (or any time spirit), and something I make a point of sharing every year. An important reminder about keeping … Continue reading
And Then This Happened
“Are you OK?” “You’ve been so quiet.” “What’s going on?” A few people have noticed and asked, not just about the sudden absence of posts over the past few weeks (after there having been so many), but concerning an overall … Continue reading
Posted in Are you kidding me?, Autumn, baking, Food, Holidays, Humor, Perspective, senior musings, Uncategorized
Tagged baking failure, baking goals, dessert fail, Filo nutella snowflake fail, I can't bake, i needed this laugh, laugh till i cried, no patience for baking, pastry on fire, snowflake pastry fail, thanksgiving
5 Comments
Fall Back
The week has brought forth a number of seasonal changes and fall-scapes. With something just short of a flourish, the Halloween decorations were happily removed from The Urban Porch ™ very early the following morning – so ready to have … Continue reading
Posted in Autumn, Daeja's Garden, Gardening, Holidays, House plants, nature, Perspective, Seasons, senior musings, The Urban Porch, The Urban Porch ™, treasures, Uncategorized, Views From he Urban Porch ™, Weather, Wildlife
Tagged autumn scenes, curious raccoons, daylight savings time, fall back, fallscapes, first frost, Halloween, night animals, November, peak leaves are over, take down the decorations, the fading of autumn, trick or treat, trick or treaters
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Looking for Light
There is too much to say and nothing to say at the same time concerning the painful state of the world these days. We are on visual and emotional overload. My rants on this blog (and there have been a … Continue reading
Posted in Autumn, Coping, Holidays, Perspective, Seasons, The Urban Porch, The Urban Porch ™, Uncategorized, Views From he Urban Porch ™, Weather
Tagged Autumn, avoiding the awful, circle of life, climate, coping mechanisms, dealing with stress, diversions, dull foliage, fake spider webs, Fall, Halloween, halloween decorations, no fall color, not looking, sleeping bees, weird seasons
2 Comments
Summing Up Twenty-two
Yup, it certainly was another weird year. Thinking about it, it appears after almost every year we finish out, we probably look back and say things like “That was really hard “, or “Whew, made it through that one!” Of … Continue reading
Posted in Holidays, Perspective, treasures, Uncategorized, Winter
Tagged 2022, following up, Gifts, Holidays, it's about the love, my micro-universe, small wonders
1 Comment
Little Thrills
A few readers have shared with me that they have been unable to comment on some of my blog posts, that WordPress won’t allow them to register their responses without jumping through a few website hoops. In general I don’t … Continue reading
Posted in Cooking, Coping, Dogs, Food, Holidays, Perspective, Photography, treasures, treasures, Weather, Winter
Tagged crows, gifting, Gumby, hunkering down, laundry lint, little pleasures, no snow, pieces of the past, simple pleasures, winter food
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A Low-key Flurry
There is a low-key flurrying happening both inside and outside the house. The outside part is a steady, light, gentle, almost-mist of snow occurring right now, just enough to get you a little bit wet. It’s the first real one … Continue reading
Ms. Almanac
The riotous outdoor color show is over. A lacework of sepia and gray branches framing the sky is pretty much what’s left behind, although the grass is still green, for now. I have removed the dead hanging plants from the … Continue reading
In Print
It wasn’t a milestone birthday and my expectations had been pretty much non-existent. Aside from wishing some things could finally be repaired or upgraded around the house (I keep wishing for that every year), this day marking another trip around … Continue reading
Posted in Friends, Holidays, Spring, treasures, Uncategorized, Wow!
Tagged appreciation, birthdays, Gifts
3 Comments
Appreciation Day
My Facebook feed has been exploding with pink gorgeousness from friends doing the “oooh-ahhh” from Japan, Washington D.C. and other places around the globe. The cherry blossoms have been blooming. K. and I were reveling in the herald of Spring … Continue reading
Posted in Holidays, Spring, Uncategorized
Tagged appreciation of beauty, Holidays, in touch with nature, mother earth, rebirth, spring celebrations
2 Comments
New Morning
The calendar on my iPhone was serving me well until it appeared I was showing up for appointments on the wrong date and missing scheduled engagements. This happened because in the process of scrolling to turn on the reminder alarms … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Holidays
Tagged aging, baby boomer, calendar, forgetful, new beginning, New Year, phone calendar, wall calendar
1 Comment
All Manner of Comfortable Things
“I’m built for comfort, I ain’t built for speed”. This line from a song keeps going through my head. I think it was Howlin’ Wolf . Didn’t Canned Heat do a version of it also? (I can’t find it if … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Holidays, Humor, Uncategorized, Winter
Tagged Chillow, comfort, comfortable gifts, holiday gifts, hot flashes, midlife, over 50, over fifty, privilege
2 Comments
Rejoice the Winter Solstice
Rejoice! The Winter Solstice. The day began with a cup of chai. Then lunch at a little French bistro with family I haven’t seen in months. Warm holiday feelings. Chocolate. Baking. My Mother’s Boots. There are some fruit flies pinging … Continue reading
A Golden Squirrel
My sister Charlotte always had squirrel-like attributes. As a child, she tended to hoard her things. As an adult, even in the leanest of times, she managed to save, to “squirrel away a little something” for the future. Looking at … Continue reading
Posted in Holidays, Uncategorized
Tagged Christmas, christmas ornaments, Christmas tree, Family, Memories, Memorium, Sisters, Suster
2 Comments
daeja's view 