It's been a heckuva year, hasn't it? I'm not sure a "best of" post will be adequate to describe all that happened in a single year. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, the whole year was such a disaster, beginning with my father's death in January, widespread pandemic-mania a few months on, vacations cut short or canceled altogether, being evacuated from our home because of a wild fire...while on vacation, no less...and finishing up the month of December with a broken shoulder and thumb. Oh yeah...lots of fun. The disaster posts got the most comments, but I decided to go through and find the posts with the most comments AND the happiest events. So here goes.
1. When we are all pandemic naive, Mike and I headed south for our usual rain bird wintering over in warmer climes. We got off to a good start, meeting up with my dear friend Judy from high school to visit the San Luis and Merced National Wildlife Refuges. It was fun seeing my friend, and we had a wonderful day watching birds and other wildlife. You can read my post right here.
2. We did some sight-seeing on our trip, visiting some state parks we'd missed on other trips. We especially enjoyed seeing Cathedral Gorge State Park on the eastern border of Nevada. You can read my post about the park and the area near Caliente, Nevada,
right here.
3. During the month of March, we were fortunate to time our visit to Picacho Peak State Park near Tucson, Arizona, when the wildflowers were blooming. Of course, flowers always get top billing here at the Three Cats Ranch. Seeing a desert bloom, is a special treat. You can read my post about the wildflowers
right here.
4. There were some new plantings in the garden this year. I was especially excited for the blooming of the new peonies I'd planted in fall of 2019, but I was also excited to see the first blossoms on the poppies from Ireland. To urge them along, I started this poppy mosaic quilt. It was finished the day the first of the poppies blew itself open, and so my strategy worked! Next year, I'll try it with the dogwood tree in front of the house. You can
read about the poppies right here.
5. Although our longer planned vacations during the year were marred by virus and wildfires, we did get a couple of short getaways that improved our outlook during a year when the news seemed always to be bad. We made a short visit to Winchester Bay, Oregon, to ride our ATV's and that was the first get-away of the year that didn't scare us into returning home early. You can
read my post right here.
So this year ends with me limping through my blog posts with a broken arm. Things improve day by day, but 2021 won't have far to go to be an improvement over 2020. I should say that I celebrated my 10th year of blogging this year, so that's something.
Also, I finished my longest-running UFO in the form of this Mulligan Stew quilt. It was started in 2013, and finally finished this year. It took a long time because I put it on hold for a while, and then decided to hand quilt it. It's good to have it finished, and I hope it never takes me so long to finish a quilt again.
Finally, there was plenty of good news to go along with the bad. I won't need surgery for my broken arm...probably...and our house was spared when a wildfire burned nearby for about a ten-day period. When we were able to return home and saw these signs,
they made me cry.
And Happy New Year everybody. Things can't help but get better.
11 comments:
To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone, and a funny bone. ~ Reba McIntire
It's nice to revisit the highlights, even though there weren't possibly as many as you would have liked. It's a year that will be remembered that's for sure and not in a good way for much of it. The highlight of our year was in January which saw the birth of our third grandson. Nothing else can compare with that even though the odds of us meeting him in person anytime soon are pretty nil.
Here's to a much better 2021!
I wasn't expecting the new post to be ready yet when I made my comment on yesterday's post. All I can add is that's helpful to your mental health to be able to look on the bright side of events and I think you've got that mastered. Onward and upward.
Pat
It already makes for a better year when you can look at the positive side of events. I know the 'blooming' additions always brightened my day.
I don't care what you post, it is always my favorite. Just keep healing slow and safely so we don't miss you---sort of selfish on our part; right? :-)
What a year it has been indeed! Good to see photos of your trips earlier this year; oh how I hope we can get back to travel soon! Best news for years end is that you don't need surgery! Here's looking forward to 2021. Happy New Year, Barbara!
You did get some good out of the year including harvests from your garden plot. Seeing your New Year banner has me wanting to comment on my Sister in Law. She is an LVN at a prison working the Covid Unit on a rotational basis. She received her first dose of Moderna vaccine yesterday. Originally she scheduled herself for her first day back to work after her Christmas break, which is Thursday. We (my brother and I) convinced her to get it NOW. It turns out the prison had asked who wanted the vaccine and were only allowed to order that many. Now others who stated they would not take it have changed their minds. She hurried down there for one of the 200 additional vaccines brought in as they had run out. It was the first day of having the vaccines so we are glad she went down. It will be interesting to hear whether the vaccine allocation will be available Thursday or if they run out.
Gorgeous photographs...wow! I hope more travel and photography is in store for you in 2021!!
You have picked a number of beautiful finishes and trips to highlight in this tough year. Thanks for linking up and happy new year!
Congrats on your UFO finish! You are a wise woman to find the good in all the bad that was 2020. Question for you, out of curiosity: Did you get a new look for the New Year (or am I misremembering your profile photo?)
Lots of fun in the hard and not so fun last year. I had forgotten about the wild fires, that alone would be enough to call it a bad year. Congrats on finishing off Mulligan Stew, it looks great. Being about to sleep on the couch versus the recliner is progress and hopefully you are able to get in some sewing room time in the near future. Happy New Year!
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