Happy New Year!

 January 2021.

Significant number of people are very happy to bid farewell to 2020 and with good reason.  I've pretty much covered my thoughts on that in the previous post so this is a welcome to January.

Everything you've ever wanted to know about January-and probably a lot you didn't much think about.  Anyway, here it is.

Hello, January

 

January Full Moon-Jan. 28^th Wolf Moon

 

Holidays

New Years Day

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Australia Day

National Book Month

National Thank You Month

National Eye Care Month

 National Volunteer Blood Donor Month

National Soup Month

Symbols of January:

Birthstone: Garnet

Flower: Carnation

 

History:

January was named after the Roman god Janus. Janus is also the Roman word for door. The god Janus had two faces which allowed him to look forwards into the coming year and backwards into the past year. The original Roman calendar only had 10 months. January and February were not included, but were added later.

Fun Facts about January

On average, it is the coldest month of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.

It is the second month of winter.

In the Southern Hemisphere January is a summer month the equivalent of July.

Sometimes the Saxons called January the wolf month because hungry wolves would come into their towns searching for food this time of year.

Celebrities Born in January

If you were born in January, you share your birth month with quite a few celebrities. Some of the most prominent are listed below.

• Elvis Presley
• Martin Luther King Jr.
• J.D. Salinger
• Zora Hurston
• Edgar Allan Poe
• Morris Chestnut
• Mel Gibson
• Oprah Winfrey
• Bradley Cooper
• Jason Bateman

Things to Buy in January

If you need any of the items listed below, you may be able to save money by purchasing them in January. Shopping for things that are on sale during January is a great way to use any gift cards you might have received for the holidays.

1. Gym Memberships and Fitness Equipment

Retailers usually offer deals on gym memberships and fitness equipment in January because they know fitness is a popular new year's resolution. During January, there are typically five times as many exercise equipment deals than during other months. Gym memberships and fitness equipment like treadmills, elliptical machines, weights, and exercise mats may be heavily discounted during the first month of each year.

2. Bedding and Bathroom Linens

The best sales for bedding usually come in January. Discounted prices on sheets, blankets, pillows, comforters, and other bedding items can be found at a number of major retailers both in-store and online. Prices may also be discounted on bathroom linens, so be sure to stock up on washcloths and towels as well.

3. Winter Clothes

January is one of the top months of the year to buy clothes, but it’s not the best time to buy all clothes. Most retailers want to clear out their winter stock to make room for spring styles. This means you can get steep discounts on winter coats, sweaters, suits, and other cold-weather apparel.

4. Spring Travel

To get deals on spring travel, schedule your trips in January. January is a slow month for the travel industry. Start looking in January if you want to take a vacation later in the year.

5. Holiday Decor

Many people know that the best time to get bargains on holiday decor is right after the December holidays. Before you take your Christmas trees and other decorations down, go shopping for new items for next year. Once the holidays are over, most retailers offer ridiculous discounts on any Christmas merchandise they have left over.

 

 

 

 

The Year in Review

 Well, here we are. Dec. 27th, 2020.  Just a few more days to the kind of year most people have no problem waving goodbye to. One word describes it all:  pandemic.  

For some people their lives were either turned on their heads or sadly ended.  Those who succumbed to COVID were mostly elderly or those with seriously compromised immune systems.  There were however many who fall into neither of those categories making the disease quite serious.

Along with the pandemic came economic hardships that are nearly impossible to measure.  Suffice it to say we continue to experience the worst economic times since the Great Depression.  Compounding this is a criminally ineffective federal government who can't put politics aside long enough to help those who have fallen on desperate times.  

That's the bad news.  The good news from my point of view is I along with my whole family managed to stay healthy.  Having said that there was a period of time last February when I, my son and my wife Sandi were quite ill from respiratory ailments of one kind or another.  My doctor said I could very well have had the Coronavirus but who knows and at this point it's academic.

Another bright spot this year is that our democratic system held up under the worst attack since its inception.  Democracy prevailed-in spite of unprecedented attempts to dismantle it by the likes of Donald Trump and his deranged supporters.  It didn't work.  In less than a month Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be sworn in as president and vice president.  Hallelujah!!  Maybe 2021 will bring us some semblance of normality.  

Personally this has not been such a horrible year.  Sure, sacrifices were made.  Trips to our condo or anywhere else had to be postponed, we were housebound a great deal and enjoying a restaurant meal will have to wait a while longer but all in all we've managed to get through it all unscathed.  

The highlight of the year was definitely Christmas with family.  Here are some pictures:

It's great to be 5 again!

A couple of days ago we rec'd our first significant snow storm of winter 20-21.  We got 12 heavy inches. 

As I am frequently reminded by my family, I'm not getting any younger so rather than attempt to clear my entire, rather challenging,  driveway, I used the snow blower to clear the turn around area up top.  A snow plow did the main part but I went back over it with my blower and widened it out.  

Before that, however, Sandi and I got bundled up to go out to shovel.  She worked on the front walk way and I shoveled out the wood pile, around the generator and a path to the propane tank behind the shed.  

Non of those things took all that long and when we were done we observed we had returned to being 5 yrs old again because it seemed to take longer to get dressed to go out than we were actually out!  

Here are some pictures of us and our feathered friends that morning. 

 

A Day to Remember

Here we are with another unforgettable day.  I've posted comments like this before.  These kinds of posts deal with extraordinary events-usually tragic ones-aside from one's personal life.  The last post of this kind was on Sept. 11th.  

It's the kind of remembrance when you know when it occurred and what you were doing and where you were when it all happened.  There aren't more than half a dozen or so in a person's lifetime.

Today's remembranc-12/14/12- is the shooting at Sandy Hook School where 20 children and 5 adults were killed by a deranged lunatic who shot his way into the school with an assault rifle.

Needless to say it rocked the nation-but especially our small community.

So, where was I and what time was it?  It was at about 9 o'clock in the morning just after the school day had started.  I was in my kidney doctor's office when the nurse came in and asked me "didn't you teach at Sandy Hook School?" To which I replied indeed I did. 

She told me to go out in the waiting room and look at the TV.  It was all down hill from there. A sad day, indeed.

As an aside, I would note that as I stated, the nation was rocked-but not rocked enough to do much about it because since then thousands and thousands of people have died as a result of gun violence.

Has our republican led congress taken action to prevent guns from fallen into the wrong hands? A loud NO answers that.  That's another tragedy!

 

Two Observations

1. I was watching a "man on the street" type interview show the other day.  The people who were being interviewed were Trump supporters.  They were asked why they supported him. The various reasons were all over the place but one common theme seemed to emerge.  I heard a lot of people say they always voted republican because they hated socialism.  I've heard this many times from people I know also.  

It got me to wondering: Do these people actually know what socialism is?  What do they mean by socialism?  The answer to the first is no.  The fact is this country is no where near a socialist state.  Socialism is when the government owns and operates the means of production.  They own everything.  We are a very, very long way from that.  The answer to what do they mean by socialism is, to me, very simple.  They're against welfare.  The notion that the government is giving handouts to people who are unwilling to pull their own weight.  Most of these people in their view are members of minorities.  So now we're talking about something very different than socialism.  

We need a new name for this phenomena.   How about racism?

2. My second observation is on a totally unrelated note.  I grocery shop at Stop & Shop.  I go there for two reasons.  First I know where everything is and second I get gas points for the amount I spend.  I get ten cents per gallon off for every one hundred dollars I spend.  As you may know it's not hard to spend a hundred bucks.  

The problem with this is that the one and only gas station in town where this program applies is a Shell station.  What do they do?  They jack up the price of their gas by as much as $.40 a gallon.  So in order for it to be worth going there I have to accumulate at least 500 points or $.50 off per gallon. On top of that they limit you to 20 gallons.  

Well, my truck has a 26 gallon tank but of course I don't run it dry but if I have a 5 gallon gas can to fill for my yard equipment in which case I easily go over the limit.

Not worth it.  My incentive to go to Stop&Shop just went out the window. 

That's it for today. 

Hello, December

 Happy December.

Birthstone: Turquoise, zircon, or tanzanite

 

Flower: Narcissus or Holly

 

 

Holidays

Pearl Harbor Day

Hanukkah

Christmas

Boxing Day

Kwanzaa

Read a New Book Month

Human Rights Month

Fun Facts about December It is the first month of winter and the last month of the year. National Cookie Day is December 4th. Other snacks celebrated this month include pie, cotton candy, chocolate brownies (mmm!), cocoa, and cupcakes. December often marks the beginning of rain, snow, and cold weather. In the United States the month is associated with Christmas. There are Christmas decorations, sales, musicals, and parties. Many people spend their time Christmas shopping. A lot of people have days off around Christmas and before New Year's Eve. December in the Northern Hemisphere is similar to June in the Southern Hemisphere. The first day of Winter is on either December 21 or 22. This is the shortest day of the year and the longest night. It is called the Winter or Southern solstice in the Northern Hemisphere.

December’s night skies

Full moon- Dec. 29^th

 

This is the month of the Great Conjunction which unfolds every two decades.   The moon is near Jupiter and Saturn on the 16^th and 17^th. Then Jupiter passes closest to Saturn on the 20^th to the 22^nd.  They will be so close that they appear as a single star.  Look for them 45 minutes after sunset in the southwestern sky.