First book of the year - quick review

I finished my first book of 2025 today.

And how I loved it! I was a big fan of Hayley Mills when I was a kid, as were most people my age. 

As she wrote about the movies she has been in, I realized that I may have seen only Pollyanna and The Parent Trap. I am going to try and get ahold of some of the more serious ones like Tiger Bay and Whistle Down the Wind, as well as some of the ones she did when she was older. 

She is a very good writer. Highly recommended.

On this Christmas Eve

 I wish all my dear blogging friends a wonderful Christmastime. I am actually doing something I've done only once as an adult. I am keeping the tree until January 6. It just somehow feels right. I also plan to read one of my favorite books on that day, Little Christmas by Agnes Sligh Turnbull.

Every Christmas, Margaret, Matthew, and Hazel give us our Christmas tree from a local grower. This year newly11-year-old Hazel chose it. It is the fullest and most beautiful one we've ever had. 

Finally!

 

Last evening we got some snow!!! I have a friend whose birthday is the 18th and quite often the snow comes on that day, so we are ten days later. It has been a warm autumn and some bushes still have their leaves. The sun came out and melted most of it away, but I am just happy to see it. I am a cold weather girl.

When You Were Big and I Was Small - Katie Theasby

The other evening I watched the wonderful The Job of Songs on Prime - Irish musicians in Doolin. One of them is the woman singing this, Katie Theasby. I've listened to it a half dozen times, and I cry every time. Wonderful song. She refers to Grapefruit Moon, the Tom Waits song, and Come On Eileen, by Dexy's Midnight Runners.

A goodbye to Kris Kristofferson - The Highwaymen - The Pilgrim: Chapter 33 (American Outlaws: Live at Nass...

I spent a wonderful time at youtube finding just the right song to honor the late Kris Kristofferson. I thought this one from The Highwayman would be good because those men are just so happy to be singing and playing together. Kris was a very big part of my life. Tom and I loved him from the first. I was lucky enough to see him three times, I think. One show Tom missed because he had his appendix out! I was in the front row in a lovely Boston small venue.

Life and the other

 If you have been blogging for a long time, you have made friends who mean as much to you as people you know in "real life". And the long time of blogging means that we have all gotten older, with the sad facts that may go along with it. Sickness. Death. 

Some of my beloved blogging friends have lost their husbands  And today I read that a woman I have been in touch with for a long time died. Her daughter posted on her blog. 

I cried as if I had known her in my everyday life, because of course I did. It is made even harder because I have been away so much in the past year. If she was sick, I didn't even know. I've emailed her daughter.

I know a lot of you have been through this, too. The blogging world is slower, quieter than what came after it. That is why I love it and continue on. It lifts me up, teaches me, offers friendships, and sometimes brings sadness.

Melody Gardot & Sting - Little Something (The One Show)

I just heard this today on a jazz radio station, and I love it. I've been a fan of Melody Gardot for a long time, and Sting is always great. Their voices go perfectly together, I think. Also, it is a tune I can't stop humming.