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| Taking a peek back on 2024! |
As I look back on a year of my Sunday Salon posts, 2024 comes back into focus before many events will begin to fade from my memory. Please click on the hyperlinks to read more about my year.
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| Our grandsons splashing in puddles. January 2024. |
Yesterday Don looked out the window at our backyard and commented that January days remind him of the song "In the Bleak Midwinter". I agreed and thought back to this post from January 27, 2024 where I tried to address how to cope with the winter doldrums. I didn't say we should all jump in puddles, but it does look fun, doesn't it? [January 27.]
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| Fred and George playing with the new quilt. February. |
Our daughter, Carly, moved home to live with us for a short time with her two cats, Fred and George, during a transition between renting and buying a new townhouse. My sister gave me a small homemade lap quilt for my birthday that month. I put the quilt on the green chair and the cats claimed it. They slept on it, pigged it so the other couldn't get on it, made tunnels with it, and fought over it. When the cats and our daughter moved into their new home, the quilt went with them. (The cats have continued their fascination with the quilt since the move, carrying it around the house in their mouths including up the stairs. No easy feat.) [February 25.]
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| Mom turns 95 in March. |
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| Our Easter family photo was supposed to be a sweet one. Jamie had other ideas. |
Much of my extended family gathered to help Mom celebrate turning 95 in March. She still lives in her own home and is very healthy. This post included several photos with the funniest being this one of my family taken the week before Easter. Jamie is not happy to be photographed. [March 24.]
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| Canyon Overlook Trail, Zion National Park. April. |
In April we took a big family vacation to Utah to visit several of the national parks. While there I read a book called Leave Only Footsteps. My Sunday post was a combined review of the book with stories and photos from our fabulous time. [April 14]
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| Tulip festival love. April. |
One week after we got home from the Utah trip, we headed north to take in the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. The weather that day was warm and beautiful and Don and I had such a fun time together enjoying the colorful flowers set against a blue sky. Being retired sure is fun. Click on the link to see many more photos from the day. [April 21.]
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| Aurora Borealis. Photo taken just outside our front door. May. |
I'm in my 60s. I had never seen the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) until this year and I was so psyched to witness it. [May 11.]
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| Three sisters. Frogner Park in Oslo, Norway. June. |
Grace and Kathy, my sisters, and I went on a sisters trip to Norway and Germany in late May/early June. We visited our 3rd cousin in Norway after doing some sightseeing. Then we flew to Germany to visit our niece and her family. Look at us! You can tell we are sisters! What a wonderful, meaningful trip. We did so much I had to blog about it twice. [June 9, June 16.]
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| A day hiking in Mt. Rainier National Park. July. |
Midsummer is so beautiful in the Pacific NW. This post highlights much of that beauty often spent with friends and family. [July 14.]
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| Two concerts sandwiched between a vacation with family. July. |
I titled the July 28th post: "Concerts, Vacations, Politics, Oh My!" We traveled to Oregon for a family vacation the day after seeing John Legend in concert at a local winery. Then we raced home to attend a Chris Stapleton concert in Seattle. I was still hopeful about politics and a portion of this post was dedicated to that hope. [July 28.]
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| Highlights of our trip to the Northeast: Boston and Maine. October. |
When friends, Ken and Carol, invited us to stay with them in a rental house in Maine for a week we jumped at the chance to visit a part of the country we've never been to before. We added several days in Boston to explore the historical sites, as well. We crammed so much into our whirlwind of a ten-day trip. We'd happily go back in a heartbeat. [October 20.]
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| Mom, age 95, and her cousin-in-law, age 99, reuniting at the Oregon vs. Illinois football game. Don and his brother, Jon, "helping coaches make halftime adjustments." October. |
A good deal of our Fall was taken up with football and politics. This post reflects both. I was so sure that Kamala was going to win. Sigh. But at least we have the happy memories of unlikely family reunions now that Oregon and Illinois are in the same football conference. As season ticket holders, we spent a lot of time in our car zooming up and down the freeway which also gave us lots of audiobook listening time. On this particular trip Don and I listened to Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by actress Judi Dench. Loved it! [Oct. 27.]
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| The days after the election. November. |
A few days after the disastrous election, I published this post called "Self Care". It was one of the most popular Sunday Salon posts of the year. I take it I wasn't the only one needing self care and wondering how to move forward. [Nov. 10.]
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| Our family together at Zoolights at the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma. December. |
On December 7th my Sunday Salon post was entitled "Stuff." I talked about all the stuff we have. The topic originated with my recognition of all the Christmas decorations we have but don't use. It was a very popular post with lots of commenters saying they have the same problem with stuff. The very next week my husband won a raffle and got about $1500 worth of new kitchen gadgets. Ha! I'm trying to get rid of stuff and we get more of it. This is a fun post because it also talks about all the events we participated in leading up to Christmas, like going to Zoolights with Don's cousin and her family. [Dec. 14.]
One of my last posts each year is my Survey of Books where I talk about books I loved and others I didn't. I look back on these posts often to remind myself which books I was reading when and what I thought of them. I hope you take a moment to peek at the survey. [2024 Survey of Books.]
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| The Chinese Garden at The Huntington, Pasadena, CA. Dec. 31, 2024. |
We spent our last day of 2024 in Pasadena sightseeing -- visiting the famous Vroman's Bookstore, wandering The Huntington's galleries and gardens, and a fabulous dinner -- all in advance of the next day to take in the Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl game. You can see by our clothing colors, we are proud Oregon Duck fans.
Good-bye 2024! Hello 2025!
