Day 2 Day radishes

Decemsber 31/And the winner is

My vote for the best Christmas decorations, oh sorry, Season decorations this year is Target.  Reluctantly I announce this ,as I think, it was last year  they canceled the Salvation Army in front of their stores.   (I made an special effort to donate to the ringing bells this year.)
These ceiling hangings reminded me of portrait silhouette cuts done in first grade or second grade for Valentine's Day for my mother. I thought these decorations lovely.   

December 27/

This is something that I meant to say before Christmas.  At my sister's birthday party her husband made a disk of photos he had taken of her from the time they married until her birthday. It was very nice for the family to watch.  Admitedly my sister is attractive, but I realized what a fine thing for any husband to to do, and  enourage more  husbands to do likewise.   Usually, it is only one of the the married partners who takes the pictures. I do not know how it happened , but about halfway through our marriage,I became the photographer.

That means that there are not that many pictures of me. But I got even, This year I gave my husband a huge self portrait with smaller ones to my daughters.  One daughter said that she would put it upstairs in her photo gallery to be.  But I said, "not so fast.  I want a prominent place in the living room.

This week I am staying with her, so she can go to work while the boys are on vacation.  While I am here, I am scanning hundreds of old family photos into my computer. I will then touch them up, and sort them.  It is a real pleasure to me to revisit these photos which have been stashed for years.  The trouble is that young people do not care, nor do they have the time to do all this fiddling.  But if you wait until my age, there is a giant mess.  Do the best you can as you go along. 

The above picture is of me and the naughty daughter who wanted to put my picture in the gallery to be.

Regardless of your age or waistline, be gracious about having your picture taken. 

December 24/Merry Christmas

I am ready for Christmas.  The way I can tell is, I am slightly anxious and annoyed.  I am grousing at my husband. When people asked if I was ready for Christmas, I said I was. One grocery checker said, "Well you are the only one I have heard that is". Hum

But a little tension before Christmas Eve is to expected and accepted.  We soon will be off to the service at church and will start with the singing of carols.  I love the carols and then I feel, "all will be well. " May all be well with you.  Merry Christmas.

December 23

I have not kept a holy Advent season.  As my priest remarked,  "Advent is the one time of the year in which the Mother Church is just plain out of kilter with our American culture. But by dumping Advent", he continues, "we lose the beauty of our heritage."  It is a mini Lent. There are beautiful readings, beautiful hymns. We  are to rejoice in Christ coming.  We long for beauty.

Yesterday I was listening to Hugh Hewitt, and on his program he had Professor Allen White, from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, who teaches Shakespeare.  But his real love is music.  He spent three hours running us through the Messiah, which we all tend to think of as Christmas music, "Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace", but in fact continues through Easter to the Ascension of Christ. The last copy we had of the Messiah was on a 33 1/3 record. 

Today,at last, I was going to do some Advent reading.  I have this very dopey Bible.  Because it is meant to be read so you can read the Bible in a year, with Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms, Proverbs, and Epistle readings each day, you can imagine how hard it is to locate the precise reading that you want,if you have just a Bible verse in mind. I did know that Isaiah was somewhere in the 900 pages.  So, I flat out opened the book, and there was ,

"For a child is born to us, a son is given to us.

The Government will rest on his shoulder.

And he will be called:  Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

This woman is wacko, cuckoo bananas, but I choose to think God was giving me a little sign.  He said, "Here, now get a little holy."

December 22/ Sex for Peace

I was listening to Michael Medved today for a short time.  He had on a couple,  married to each other, and they are political activists.  She twenty years older than he.  They are promoting today a world wide, Sex for Peace Day, or what they refer to as "Big O". All this energy is going to go for Peace. 

I am anxious that you all get this news early in the day, so you make time.  Anytime of day will work.  I know it is an intrusion on Advent. Still, for your Christmas gift to the world, the price is right. 

December 21

Today IS the Solstice, so get out there and wish people Happy. I got a Solstice hug this morning.

We have been listening to Carols lately.  We have our favorites, the more traditional with the Three tenors and the Irish Tenors.  We listen to flute music and choirs.  Meredith asked me which was my favorite carol and what came to mind was Away in a Manger, the second tune.  Last night, asleep and awake, I sang it in my mind perhaps 400 times...and not because I wanted to.  It is no longer my favorite carol.  I guess that I did not have anything else to worry about.  When songs start replaying in my mind, I guess it is better to have one you like, than one you don't.

I have been looking on the Internet about Christmas Carol origins.  There is some whacked out stuff. Things like calling Away in a Manger baby worship. Carols basically started around the time of St. Francis of Assisi in the 13th century, who used them as songs of praise. Later the French sang songs and danced in a circle, and that was "to carol" Two days ago we made the trip out to La Connor for lunch.  Two sisters were singing carols on the street.  I was glad to see they had not been run off even though they sang off key.

I am very encouraged.  This season I rarely hear "Happy Holidays" flung out to you as you leave a store.  It's Merry Christmas. My new favorite carol is 'It's Christmas Mary".

December 20/Happy Birthday Radish

This is the Radish's one year birthday.  And I admit that I am proud of myself.  I expected this to be about a three or four month venture because I am famous for starting things, and not finishing them,or just get bored.  So to have made it a year, thinking on my feet, wondering what to write after the first thirty columns, has been remarkable.  If I was asked to speak about many of these topics, I likely could not have.

I would like to thank the readers,  and actually there are a few outside my immediate family, for tolerating the grammar and punctuation, and who came back to read another day.  I thank my Granddaughter, Callie, for helping me get set up.  I thank my daughters for making corrections now and then, and for responding as much as they do.  I thank the substitute bloggers. Sometimes the commentators have put a more accurate spin on the details.

I have tried to work on my photography along the way.  It has been a great discipline.  And it has helped me organize my thoughts and opinions, and save some memories from other times.  Always feel free to enter in, and comment.  THANK YOU, READERS!

December 19/Solstice

In two days is the winter solstice.  This is a big day in our family because the night time recedes at both ends. In the Pacific Northwest that is good.   Actually the evenings  have already started to shorten by a minute each night.  It is a good night to give a party.  Many years I have.  It takes a little angst off Christmas, and no one expects much. 

The best part of the day is saying,"Happy Solstice to you."  I say it to everyone I can. People look like deer in the headlights, as in what is that suppose to mean?  What religion is that? It is a reality check on the smarts of Americans.  I give you this heads up, so you can have a candlelit dinner, and you can go to the grocery store and the  post office wishing people a Happy Solstice.  If there is a present you bought for yourself for Christmas, go ahead and open it up. 

December 18/ Christmas trees

I think this is my next year's Christmas card. Not. But one must admit it does have a festive feeling.   This is a display at Michael's Arts and Crafts before Halloween. 

Seattle had a big to-do over Christmas trees at Seatac Airport. For some years now there have been decorated trees at the airport.  This year the trees went up as usual. Then some rabbi asked if he could put up a Menorah (he did come with his attorney), and the upshot was that in the middle of the night the Port Authority  took down all the decorated trees. The trees seem to represent something too Christan.  While Christmas trees are not religious at all, somehow the Port Authority did not know this.  I can not imagine anything more secular than the above trees.

For once the public reacted appropriately.  The trees have been restored. 

December 18/Would you want to live here?

You are looking at a favela in Campinas, Brasil, not far from where my children attend school.  As far as favelas go, this is rather a nice one. Not that you would want to live there. 

Faithful readers of Sally's blog will appreciate the following statistics:

1) Our bazaar raised approximately $2,500  US dollars - not bad for a day's work.

2) between expatriates here in Campinas, church members, and interested Americans, 92 children directly received gifts of clothing and footwear.  Some of the money raised from the bazaar was used to pay for gifts for the remaining, unsponsored children.  All of the program participants received a gift.

3) Compassion International sponsors contributed money to buy gifts for their 250 sponsored children.   That brings the total of the children receiving gifts to 500.  These 500 kids live in the pictured favela.  The Servico Social Nova Jerusalem can be seen in the photo to the left. 

4) Imagine living through a rain storm in one of these houses. 

I personally would like to thank all of you who participated in bringing untold joy to the children who live here, even though you do not know them.   Talk about a bang for your buck!  Blessings.