Good morning, 2025!
A good, lazy morning for us: we stay under the quilt, Ed brings up the news article with pictures of New Year's Eve around the world and we try to guess where they're from. Paris, London, New York, Sydney -- those are easy! Bangkok, Damascus -- those were a little harder. It seems that much of the world pops fireworks on the coming of the New Year. We don't do that here, in the U.S. and I'm glad.
Good morning cold and crusty farmette lands. We wont be seeing temperatures above freezing for the next several weeks (if not longer). Again, I'm glad. Our lands need the deep freeze for any number of reasons. And we have a good furnace and wonderful quilts in the home.
We will need some motivation to get out more, especially on cloudy days like this one, but hey! What are New Year's resolves for if not for this? And loathe that I am to give advice on how to go about your life, I will offer this one once again: aim small for the New Year. Especially if you are older (like us!) -- you know what you're capable of accomplishing. Stick with the possible! Here, I'm offering you a humor piece from the New Yorker today:
New Year's Resolutions for an Anteater: That's right, you guessed it, I'm gonna eat a shit ton more ants.
Breakfast. Here's where we send you our warmest heartfelt wishes for a good 2025.
I spend a couple of hours in Poland with Bee (over Zoom). We think ahead, we think back. I'm feeling grateful that we can still think (and plan) ahead, albeit just a little bit tentatively!
Lunch? I skip the cookie today. Little things, people! Little things!
[Speaking of little things, may I put in a plug for small succulents for your windowsill? So pretty, even in the dead of winter!]
Ed reads me most popular names for children born in 2024 in Madison: Lainey (eleven in just one hospital!) and Emma, Theodore and Henry and Leo and Oliver (there is a tie in boys' names). All those names are comfortable, familiar to me. Out of curiosity, I look up commonly chosen Polish names from 2024: Nikodem and Antoni for boys, Zofia and Zuzanna for girls. That's a bit of a shocker. First of all, I've never heard of anyone named Nikodem and indeed, it doesn't even sound Polish to me. Secondly -- I always thought Zuzanna was a rarely used name. Well might I think this -- I have a daughter with that name. How styles and fads come and go! A hundred years ago, it appears that Robert and Mary were the most common American names. Who even names their child Mary anymore?
We go for a walk. No hesitation about heading out. It's the New Year! Nothing original -- just to our regular old park, which doesn't even look grand on this cold January day. (And when the wind picks up, it is cold!) But, the trees stand tall, sheltering us from at least some of the wind, the air feels brisk and we walk, content.
(Checking in on the half sunken ice hut -- not surprisingly, they haven't been able to drag it our and they surely wont be able to do it now.)
(on our way back...)
For supper we eat leftovers. There are only seven shrimp left from yesterday's seafood platter, But I put together a big salad, with added carrots, spinach, radishes, cucumber, avocado and asparagus, and we've got ourselves a feast! And an easy clean up. We need to go easy on ourselves in 2025, remember?
We consider our viewing options. No more holiday searches. We're back to random online lists and friend suggestions. But why oh why did we pick A Call to Spy (a true story about women enlisted as spies for Britain during World War II) on this pleasantly quiet, calm day? What's worse, somewhere toward the end, when everything is going amuck for all the good people, I say to Ed -- we've seen this movie before, haven't we? Yep.
Honestly! Horror, on repeat. Well, may it serve as a reminder of how little we have to complain about in our lives.
As for cheerful movies -- we will do better tomorrow! (she said, without much conviction)
But let me at least end this post on a cheerful note -- I heard on PBS news today that for every minute you exercise, you gain five extra minutes of life. I repeated this to Ed who then asks -- so... if I exercise all the time I'll live forever, right? Ha! Ed's comment notwithstanding, think of it -- if, having just read this, you get up now and exercise for a minute, I will have contributed to your longer life! Go for it!
Or not. But do have a safe and peaceful 2025!
with so much love...
