Everyday Courage: everydaycourageblog.com

December 31, 2025

The end of this year, and glad to see it go almost as much as the Covid years. This year has been a year filled with uncertainty, anxiety, and a lot of dread. I have spent more time alone this past year than I think I ever have. Secluding myself, with fewer dinners with friends, fewer blending into the crowd at sporting events, either due to lack of funds or feeling unwelcome, mostly lack of ticket money.

Ok, enough regret. What has happened in the positive column year…let’s see. The birth of a grandson and a great nephew, nothing better than new life and sweet smell of baby hair.  Those toothless grins are the absolute best. I remember when my first grandbaby came home from the hospital, and the intense love that never leaves us, but molds and shapes into warm feelings as they grow up and turn their attention to all the things not grandparent.  You know, when I look back on the years growing up, my grandparents never came to my house after I moved out of my parent’s home. We always went their house for holidays, get-together, or just because. They never once, to my recollection, ever attended one of my sporting events, or my children’s games. I have to think now it could have been a number of things, especially the steps leading up the front door, it’s hard for me these days to climb many steps. But I digress, things keep changing and if it can’t be said in a text, it doesn’t get said very often because young people can’t talk in person or make eye contact. And they can’t function without a cell phone, that polite “thank you” text can feel like a slap in the face. I said what I said.

Back to the positives, I still have a husband who loves me and works really hard to hold things together. He’s not perfect, but he has been perfect for me in a lot of ways. We celebrated 20 years of marriage this year, and that time has flown by. We met on the internet, scary I know, but it worked out for us. And boy did we have a rough start. I had a stroke in the first year before we got married, at 39 years old, at the end of a two week notice before starting a new job. Now that is a story, but not for today, but I will have to tell it in the next few months, just in case that last birthday thing comes true.

We have been blessed to have a warm home, food in the frig, and the ability to cook meals from ingredients. The chickens give almost an egg a day during these cold drab days, so another blessing, and the pullets are growing, so there is a promise of more eggs on the spring. And the older ones have become meat in the freezer, another life skill learned in recent years.

So memories swirl in my head as the dish washer chugs along, thankful for all ways God has provided for us. I sit here trying to find a purpose. I could start the year off with creativity. Start that quilt I have want to for years, the watercolor painting that needs honed, or the card stock waiting to be cut into greeting cards. It’s too cold to work on the rock wall I started this fall, not to mention I don’t think my back could take the heavy lifting right now. It’s also time to plan ahead for the next gardening season, the fall weeds have been tilled under, and the soil is beckoning. Seed catalogs tempt me, but I will have to see what the budget allows.

I was watching an old show recently, and a comment was made about whoever controls the food, also controls the people. How true is that?! The massive death of cattle in the stock yard out west, the controlled killing of the chickens and turkeys to “control” the spread of a virus, and the GMO stuff. I know my garden didn’t live up to expectation this past growing season, either from the heat, lack of rain at the right time, or bad seed. I hope this spring I am able to plant a productive garden with a bounty that can be shared with friends and family. Therefore, there are a lot of things to look forward to, one step at a time.