We enter another decade under the threat of war with Iran. My husband and I are still alive, and so is the dog. But so many people we know have died. Old age is taking its toll. Or maybe I should say its harvest.

At this time of life, you know you don't have long to live, whether it's five years, ten years, or even twenty. I'm planning to do a Scandinavian death cleanse, and hope I live long enough to finish it.

I have more books than I can read in my lifetime, yet I keep buying more. I'm compelled to. But I know someone will read and enjoy them after I'm gone, even if it's not someone in my family.

Reading has become even more important to me as I've grown old, but it's always been important. I don't know who I would be if I didn't read. I read 110 books in 2019 and read over 140 books in 2018.

Having been diagnosed with macular degeneration, I don't know that I will always be able to see well enough to read. But at least there are audiobooks. I don't know that they will be as enjoyable, although I loved being read to as a child. Our fifth grade teacher often read to us, and I loved it so much. Thank you, Mrs. Jumper. I'm sure you never knew how much that meant to me.

Christmas Eve

Almost five years have passed, but my blog is still here, I'm happy to see. Today I am trying to prepare for a modest Christmas in the midst of bad news coming from everywhere. A tsunami in Indonesia killing hundreds of people; Etna is acting up, but so far no one killed; the stock market is plummeting again.

When I started this blog, I had a young dog. Now my dog is elderly, like me, but is healthy and active so far. Still clear-eyed and energetic, although she may be sleeping just a bit more than she used to. It's hard to tell. She and my husband and I are all around the same age now.

I have recently become the possessor of an iPhone, an event I hadn't planned on since I didn't feel that I needed such a thing. But my daughter gave me her old one and set me up with service. I find that texting is rather nice for keeping in touch with my distantly located relatives, namely two younger sisters who still work and are extremely busy with jobs and grandchildren.

I had an unpleasant shock early this week when I learned that a friend who lives in another state died suddenly the very day I last spoke with her. Since she was expecting company the next day, I hadn't expected to hear from her for at least a week. And since her family doesn't know me, I didn't know about her death for over two weeks. She had already been cremated.

After not hearing from her for over two weeks and not being able to reach her on the telephone, I looked at the obituaries in her city's newspaper and saw the sad news. I was able to get in touch with one of her relatives and learned that she had probably died not long after I spoke with her on March 29.

As we all know, we never know when we'll be speaking with someone or seeing them for the last time.

Better late than never?

Obviously I didn't follow through on "taking up" the blog again as I said I would in 2013.

This has been a tough winter but we can't complain that much in this area, although we do. People in other parts of the country had it much worse than we did. We all just got very tired of the cold and the snow. It's been like living in a snow belt, but now it seems that spring is finally coming through. As my daughter says, we'll soon be complaining about the heat. There's always a good store of things to complain about.

Spring is my favorite season. My only complaint is that it goes by so fast.

I'm taking up this blog again, although I'm not sure why. Maybe just because I feel like it. I think I should continue this insigificant celebration of mundanity, since it's all around me.

The first day of 2013 has proven to be utterly mundane at our house, thank goodness! I cooked. My husband watched the Twilight Zone marathon on television. The dog and the cat napped a lot.

It's frigid outside, several inches of snow on the ground, and promises to be the same all week.  

Such a long time since I've posted here and such a hard year it's been. My aunt died in February, my brother-in-law died in March, and my mother died in August.

They were all in their eighties and had long, happy lives, but it was still hard to lose them all so close together.

Leaving for Cleveland

We'll be leaving for Cleveland around noon tomorrow. The service for my aunt will be Monday morning at 10:00.

We're still getting snow. It's been a record snowfall for us this winter, but still we haven't been as hard hit during this storm as people farther east.

We could have another two weeks of this, but I would think by the middle of March, we should see some milder weather, and that will be very much welcomed by everyone in these parts, I'm sure.