Popcorn Thoughts

Random popcorn thoughts, bursting out and then laying in a pile.

What looked like progress at my house yesterday looked like a discouraging mess this morning.  Ornaments boxed but in a pile on the floor.  Wrapping paper and bags corralled but in their own pile.  Lights half off the tree.  Pretty holiday dishes still on the kitchen counter.  Aero Beds rolled up but not put away.  Sheets washed but not back on the bed.

And yet all of it is part of my joy if I just let it be.  One last chance to admire those ornaments.  Remembering that this year Sarah put the lights on the tree so nicely that everyone who came in the door commented on it.  Remembering sleepovers with the grands and Steph, a tradition when Sarah and Winnie come.

Usually I spend New Year's Eve planning my goals for the year, but this year I had company so that's something enjoyable still to do.  I will choose a few goals that are easy to do and a few that I can't see my way through yet.  Even at this age, I enjoy looking ahead to the kind of person I want to be and figuring out the steps on the way.  

And my Christmas book from my niece and sister, Becoming by Michelle Obama.  If you haven't read it, you're missing out on a treat.  It's hard to put down.  Regardless of your politics, it's a well-written and interesting book  A glimpse into another life.

I heard last night that the dad of one of my neighbors passed away unexpectedly.  I wonder what the culture is here.  Food?  A card?  Visitation?  I don't know my neighbor well, but well enough to say hello every week or so.

Down my street:  construction on a house across the street at the end continues.  As it has for five years now.  No kidding.  And on my side of the end of the street, there is a dumpster today.  The inside of the house is being gutted.  I don't know what happened to the old man who lived there, whether he died or whether the house was condemned and he went to a nursing facility.  Whether as the years went by things just got too much for him and he ignored them.  I can understand how that might happen.

Do you suppose the same people who have been working on the five-year house will be working on the other one?  For another five years?