Dear God, Thank You for new beginnings. This is an incredible day, with a fresh year’s potential stretched out before me. I want to be faithful this year in every opportunity You bring to me. Thank You, Lord, for new beginnings. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. – Pastor David McGee
Thanks for being part of my blogging life. You are valued more than you know! A most happy, blessed 2023 to you.
I venture to say that very few have looked forward to a new year quite as much as everyone has looked forward to this one. Thanks for taking this journey with me and welcome to the next stage.
“Hope
Smiles from the threshold of the year to come,
Whispering ‘it will be happier’…”
― Alfred Lord Tennyson
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.” ~T.S Eliot, Little Gidding
“Any new beginning is forged from the shards of the past, not from the abandonment of the past.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough
“Each New Year, we have before us a brand new book containing 365 blank pages. Let us fill them with all the forgotten things from last year—the words we forgot to say, the love we forgot to show, and the charity we forgot to offer.”
― Peggy Toney Horton
“The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes.”
― G.K. Chesterton, A Chesterton calendar
We had the best Christmas possible under Covid, Zooming with family who would have been here and sharing time with family we haven’t spent Christmas with in years. Tonight we’ll be FaceTime-ing with friends from Illinois, then tomorrow is not only another day, but another year, something I know we’ve all been waiting for.
Our daughter had some time off and slipped out of California to visit us, although her husband had to stay home and work. So yesterday we drove to Queen Creek Olive Mill for some coffee and mother-daughter time before she headed back to the west coast.
The outdoor area is in an olive grove shaded by olive trees and where there are several Christmas tree-shaped trees guarded by two lions. The trees are decorated for Christmas, the lion thankfully not. But this lion doesn’t look too happy, probably because…
…with post-dawn temperatures in the upper 30’s it’s not exactly the African savanna and it’s a bit chilly sitting outside even with a hot mocha. These gas fires are very cheerful and look nice and warm, but we found that they really aren’t, so we sat on the covered patio which had standing heaters as well as heaters above us. It was so toasty we were able to take of our jackets and just enjoy our drinks. It was lovely.
Yes, the trees have olives, but don’t eat one off the tree. Until they’re cured and fermented, they’re very bitter as my husband discovered in Provence years ago when his sister gave him an olive right off the tree. Siblings!
Since meals and snacks are served here, there are crumbs and where there are crumbs, there are those who try to help clean them up, whether or not they’re being paid.
Relaxing in the sunshine (with additional heat as needed), enjoying time with my daughter while sipping a mocha topped with whipped cream, surrounded by cute little birds and stone lions, admiring the bougainvillea…life is good. Let’s pray that 2021 will be the same.
This, that and the other thing 