Good bye 2010. You have been a good year.

While some might say 'good riddance' to the old year and pray for a more peaceful or prosperous 2011, I have been quite content with 2010.

Although I did not win the lottery (you must play to win) or get picked to introduce Neil Diamond at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction, or even win the Ipod from an Alma Mater (promised if one made a minimal donation-what a sucker I am, but for a good cause), it has been a good year.

How does one come to that conclusion short of reviewing journals (you have to write them to have them to review) or photo albums (ditto)?

I trust that my memory will never shorten to the place where I can not at least scan the year past and get some sense about how it went. And this year went well.

Generally good health within the family; generally secure job positions for same (which gives me generally secure social security); no job offers that I couldn't refuse; moving closer to degree completion requirements (some of which I should be working on at this moment, but no, writing my blog is much more fun...and much less cerebral); generally good weather (no tornadoes, no flooding); no major house repairs (why borrow trouble from 2011); great friends (past and present).

I think that one can have a very good year in most respects and still count it all a dismal failure of a year if the family is in disarray. Perhaps that is why I count 2010 as a success. I love my family. You can not imagine how much fun it is to be around them: as a group, as individuals, with boyfriends or without. If you know anyone in my family, you know they are uniquely wonderful. How could it be that I would be blessed with so many of these extraordinary individuals?

I have no answers but I am grateful. And that's what I think about it.

Lyrics, Schmerics

I have just discovered that I was very wrong. Although I believed it to be true, I have discovered that it is not easy to compose a poem by switching the words to a favorite one, like "Twas the night before Christmas..." I started out okay, "Twas the week after Christmas and all though the land..., then something catchy about retailers and kids with candy canes. It rhymed but did not make sense. Like many a Neil Diamond song.

You already know that I love Neil Diamond and received his latest CD (almost called it an album) for Christmas. But really, down through the decades, I have discovered that his music, like my poem, rhymes but the lyrics have often sacrificed thought pattern and grammar for poetry. This endears him to me.

Some examples:

"She feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China." Google China and you find that China is not the citrus crop capital of the world.

"And no one heard at all, not even the chair...."

"Money talks, it don't sing and it don't dance, but it can walk..."

"Song sung blue weeping like a willow, song sung blue sleeping on my pillow..."

And on it goes. However it is these very lyrics and music that have now placed Neil in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I might say, "And not a moment too soon," but I would be wrong. This honor is years in coming, long overdue and a bruise if not a black-eye on the committee who chooses the Inductees that have not acted until now to let him take his rightful place.

But back to those lyrics for a moment, lest we forget:

It's Love Brother Love say Brother Love's traveling salvation show
Pack up the babies and grab the old ladies and everyone goes
'Cause everyone knows Brother Love's show

From: http://www.musicbabylon.com

Tomorrow I am driving five hours to my twice-yearly seminary Intensive week. Five hours. Five hours of Neil singing "You don't bring me flowers anymore," "Captain of a Shipwreck," and "Kentucky Woman." I am very much looking forward to the drive and may just go the speed limit and stretch it out to five hours and a half.

And that's what I think about it.

Two days before Christmas, 2010. Last week's snow has melted, the ice is long-gone but the temperatures remain seasonal which, for around here, means in the 30s. My holiday decorations are meager. One 3-foot glittery tree in a pot on the coffee table surrounded by gifts in matching wrapping paper set off with huge snowflakes in lieu of ribbon. Frosty bough with pine cones on the mantel. That's about it.

But not quite.

There's a wreath on the front door as we didn't want our neighbors to think we'd become Scrooge-like characters who eschewed the celebration.

And let me mention the "Peace on Earth" and "Joy to the World" signs that hang in all their glittered glory on the wall along with one lone wreath in the entryway. Christmas napkins fill the holder and a bowl of red crab apples sit atop a pantry.

Even though I had planned to scale-back this year, and I have, there still is a lot of Christmas around here.

I seem to have quite a bit of it on my body. I sit here wearing silver bell earrings, a glass Santa necklace, holiday bracelet with Christmas bangles and a silver tree pin. Oh my goodness! I have become the very person I warned myself about 30 years ago. The over-accessorizer, the woman who wears one of everything. To my credit I do not have on a Christmas sweater, thanks in part to grand daughters who have scoured every family closet and Goodwill Store looking for these items in which to become the nerd-iest teen around. If they start looking for jewelry next year, I'll have a treasure trove for them.

Merry Christmas. It is so much more than decorations and accessories and presents. I know you know that. Perhaps you will take some time this Christmas to ponder what it does mean.

And that's what I think about it.

In Jeannette Walls' book, Half Broke Horses, she recounts the life of her grandmother. The historical memoir recounts life in Texas and Arizona during the early 1900s.

Drawn to this book by the prequel, The Glass Castle, it recounts the remarkable life of a woman who would not be defeated by the ruts and storms of life. Time after time through events that might have derailed the strongest of us, Walls' grandmother adjusted and moved forward, refusing to wallow in self-pity due to the unfairness of life or people, always moving in some sort of forward motion with confidence and hope.

It is hope that provides the fuel for moving on, moving beyond or over whatever event has determined to derail our dreams.

Half Broke Horses begins with a harrowing event with three children caught in a notorious west Texas flash flood, clinging to the upper limbs of a tree for safety during a long night until the water receded. When the mother declares that it was her prayers all night for her children that saved them, the author's grandmother remarks, mostly to herself, that she herself had a whole lot more to do with saving her brother and sister than God did.

If you are at all into books, this would be a good one to pick up. It will make you grateful. It will make you determined. For what, you'll have to decide, but it is no story for the 'poor me, life owes me a living' crowd.

And that's what I think about it.