Tuesday 4~ After Christmas

Dec 31, 1949 Mary Petty's art

 Tuesday 4...per our Hostess Annie: 

"Hello! I am Annie. I write the Cottage by the Sea. Toni Taddeo, the original author of Tuesday 4, was a good friend for many years. This blog is dedicated to keeping Tuesday 4 alive in her memory."

After Christmas...

Hello Friends and Happy Holidays to you all.

1. What are you doing New Years Eve and New Year's Day?

To be honest, I haven't even thought about it yet!  We will be having another extended family "Christmas gathering" and also wishing a Happy Birthday to our daughter in law Rose this coming weekend, so that will probably be it for us as far as doing anything else before the New Year.  

Normally we don't stay up late on New Year's Eve anyway. We go to bed around 10 and if we hear noise at midnight outside we might wake up and say Happy New Year to each other and hopefully go back to sleep!. LOL.  Yes, we're that old! LOL.


2. Do you have any New Year traditions? Rose Parade? Mummers? Football games or parties?

As far as traditions go, we may be eating black eyed peas and ham or what we call "Hopping John", which is a black eyed peas and rice dish.  Hubby will be watching football I am sure. Maybe the kids will be here...I really don't know at this point. One day at a time right now.  

3. Is the day after Christmas a bit of a let down or do you continue to be merry and bright?

Well, I am still "merry and bright", but it is a tired kind of "merry and bright".  I think with all of the hype leading up to Christmas for the past several weeks...shopping, wrapping, cleaning house, writing cards, attending church functions and practicing for the choir cantata and singing in the cantata on Christmas Eve day,  and then having a lovely gathering of family and dear friends at our house on Christmas day for a delicious lasagna dinner...well today I just kind of "decompressed" all day.  Didn't do anything I didn't have to do...but we did do some laundry of all the new things we got for Christmas...new underwear and socks (yes!! a tradition!) and hubby got some clothing that needed to be washed with extra care to make sure it didn't shrink...flannel shirt and some pullover knit shirts, etc., so we did that today so he could put them away and wear them as needed.

  

4. Do you have anything in mind for the new year and do you start off the new year with high hopes and expectations?

I always start off the New Year with high hopes in what God can and will be doing in the new year; a time of new beginnings and prayers for special things to happen for loved ones and friends.  Remember what the angel told Mary in Luke 1:37  "For with God nothing will be impossible.” 

 

We had a wonderful Christmas blessing last night in that our grandson called us and we had a nice long conversation with him after several months of no communication at all. It was like a Christmas miracle to us.  If you recall, our grandson and his fiancee' had spent some time with us this past spring, and then they went back home to Maine when things didn't work out here as expected for them. When they left, things were not going really well for the whole situation, and sadly they left with some hard feelings toward us.  Although I had been trying to keep the lines of communication open, it was not being reciprocated.  But finally there was a breakthrough of sorts, and our grandson has finally responded back to us with much love and appreciation for all that we had done for them. He also let us know that their engagement is now "off", which explained a lot of things...and so it was a blessed reunion to be able to talk freely once again with our only grandson, the son of our dear son who is in heaven...so you can see why he is very close to our hearts. Therefore, we do have some "high hopes and expectations" for him, and pray that God will guide and lead him in the way he should be going. He does finally have a good job and seems very excited about that...so we are very thankful to God for answering some special prayers on his behalf.

Another thing that I do each new year is select a "One Word" for the  year. This past year my word has been "Listen".   I would like to say that I've been learning to listen better and be more in tune with what God is saying to me...but lately I've had some situations where I have acted upon what I thought was God's leading, and things haven't gone the way I thought they would.  The situation with our grandson was one area where I feared that we had stood too strongly on certain points and maybe not enough on others, but now I believe God is showing me that we were right to do what we did at the time, and that He is honoring that faith now.  In another situation that is in regard to another special person, I now am concerned that I may have stepped out of line because things were not received in the way I thought they would be and it has caused some heartache for another...but again, I believed I was following God's leading after "listening" to His voice...and so, like in the case with my grandson, my prayer is that in time it will work out the way I believed it would...it just may take some time and patience to see how God is going to work things out for the good of all concerned.

Romans 8:28 tells us:  "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose."   It just may take some time for everything to come together so that others can see what God is doing.

So far I have not decided upon the new "One Word" for 2024.  There are some words that have been floating around in my mind and heart for a little while, but it isn't usually until the last few days of the year that the word becomes a solid choice after a lot of thought and prayer.  So stay tuned for further "developments". 

Here's a few pictures from today on Still Water's Pond, if you'd like to see what's happening here:

The Ring Necked Ducks are enjoying swimming around and round and diving down and popping back up again.

They never seem to tire from this activity, which for them is gathering food for survival...

But to us it just looks like they are enjoying a delightful day on the pond!

After watching them swim for awhile, I noticed the skies were changing and we had a lovely sunset...

I know you think I post too many pictures, but when things change every minute I have to keep snapping the pictures, and it is so difficult to decide which ones to show you and which ones to delete...

So I hope you don't mind that I try to show you only the best ones...

But it is so hard to decide which ones are the best...

It keeps changing from every angle...

Also there was some smoke in the air from a fire someplace for a while, and that kind of changed the colors of the skies for a while (and I also had to go back inside until the air cleared as it was very smoky!)

Okay, we are getting close to the end...

The grand finale...

And then there was the full moon...

Okay, that's all folks!  I hope you have a joyous rest of your week as we close out 2023 and look forward to what God is going to do in 2024.

Good Night and God bless you richly.

Amen.

Let's go see what our friends are saying about this Tuesday 4 meme...