A blog category about finding “art” in unexpected places and situations.
So I walked into the kitchen after Robert had been in there grabbing some grapes from the fridge.
I looked on the counter and saw this …
I started to get a tad irritated until my SAE (superior artistic eye) suddenly saw a work of art!
It is kinda pretty, isn’t it?
So back in 1985 I started saving my yearly/monthly calendars.
I’m not sure why.
So that makes … what? Forty years in 2025.
I suppose it started out as just a way to remember birthdays, appointments, to do’s and other important (or unimportant) dates I was prone to forget. This was before the days of “Siri, remind me ….”
But it morphed into jottings of my hopes and dreams, my frustrations, my successes, my problems, my New Year’s Resolutions (difficult to look back over today), my very … non-Facebook life.
As I skim through the pages of years/years of pages, I see emerging themes: family, children, travel, career, wife, ex-wife, coming out, husband, grandchildren, parental deaths, medical issues, joy, sorrow … Life.
I’m not sure what to do with them. Leave them to my daughters? Burn them?
The National Enquirer? People Magazine? The highest bidder?
Here’s to my new calendar for 2025 and whatever it may bring.
May your 2025 calendar be filled with Good.
And that’s my Saturday Evening Post. 1/11/2025.
My weekly gratitude journal, of sorts.
1. My Roasted Tomato, Garlic and Basil Soup.
With HR’s gooey Habanero Cheese Toast.
YUM!
2. Heated homes for cold winter days.
3. This Peanuts blessing I received the other night. I pass it on to you.
4. Reading Ina Garten’s fascinating memoir.
(Do you think it’s too late for me to become a world-famous, multimillion dollar celebrity chef?)
5. The memory of this little silk arrangement of spring daffodils in the downstairs winter bathroom of our Airbnb at a recent stay in Baltimore.
(It doesn’t take much to make me happy.)
I hope it doesn’t take much to make you happy this weekend.
So today I took down (a tad sadly) our Travel Tree.
If you have followed my little blog for a while (and why on earth would you not?), you may remember that Robert and I have a second, smaller Christmas Tree which we call our Travel Tree. All the ornaments are ones we have purchased on our various travels.
As I cleared the little white tree, my eyes kept resting on a couple of simple ornaments.
And I didn’t want to hurriedly take them off. So I let them hang around a while longer.
HR and I have visited Plains, GA, hometown of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, a couple of times, appreciating the small town that birthed such a tremendously kind and humanitarian couple.
May President Carter, as he is being laid to rest this evening next to his beloved Rosalynn, finally Rest in Eternal Peace, after a long life well lived.
Hotdog!
On our drive back from Baltimore the other day, Robert and I stopped off at DC for a couple of hours to go to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. We had never been before and were eager to do so.
“The National Museum of African American History and Culture has accomplished what once seemed like an impossible dream: opening a museum dedicated to a people’s journey and our nation’s complete, unvarnished truth.” (museum website)
We only had time to explore the lower floor, which curated the horrific exploitation of slaves from West Africa. Fascinating. Disturbing. Meticulously documented.
“Slavery and Freedom uses first-person accounts and striking historical artifacts to tell an incredibly complicated tale. The exhibit traces slavery from 15th century Africa and Europe to the Civil War and Reconstruction in the United States. This vital history emphasizes that American slavery and freedom are deeply intertwined, and that the story of slavery is in fact a shared one that resides at the core of American politics, economics and daily life to this very day.” (washington.org)
The wonderful fellow who introduced us to the museum at the entrance suggested that after we explore for a while, we go to the Contemplative Court to “wind down and reset” after the museum’s lower floor trauma.
So we did.
We are determined.
My weekly gratitude journal, of sorts.
1. Discovering Buc-ee’s (that people seem to rave about) on our recent drive to Baltimore.
Robert and I have never been to one before.
This is a gas station?!
2. Athletic Grandson Gabriel, along with teammate Peyton, earning the All Tournament Team award AS FRESHMEN after Savannah Country Day School won their Holiday Basketball Tournament.
3. The wonderful ability to HEAR. What do you hear right now?
4. These World Famous (or so the menu said) Diner Chips at a little diner I found in Raleigh, North Carolina on our way back from Baltimore yesterday.
5. HR in front of this cool mural near the Inner Harbor in Baltimore.
May you get in front of some Weekend Joy ahead.
NealEnJoy 