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Is it Woo Hoo or Boo Hoo that the New Year is Almost Here?

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Something About Nothing by Julie Seedorf Published week of December 29th, 2014

Woo hoo! The new year is almost here! Or is it, boo hoo the New Year is almost here?!

I am very conflicted about whether we should be happy that the New Year is here or sad that the old year is gone.

What does it mean when the old year is gone? It is another year of your life that you can’t get back. Depending on what kind of a year you have had, that might not be all bad but it also means you are older.

What does the New Year mean? It means that we have to find all the paper work and file taxes. It means, if we have a business we have to do more paperwork. It means we have to redo our health insurance.  When the old year ends and the new year begins it means all that paperwork has to also start over and get organized for the new year.

We make New Year’s resolutions for the New Year that most of us don’t keep, and we also resolve to not make the same mistakes in the New Year that we made the year before. We usually don’t keep that resolve either or if we do, we make different mistakes in the New Year.

I looked around on the Internet to check out some other people’s New Year’s resolutions. They made me chuckle. Have any of you ever made these resolutions? I will not bore my boss by with the same excuse for taking leaves. I will think of some more excuses. I will stop buying useless junk online. I will read the manual just as soon as I can find it. Always replace the gas nozzle when driving away from the pump. I resolve to stop poisoning my family with my cooking. These were taken from Random on Fanpop and Lifestyle online. I could probably adopt some of those for me especially the cooking one.

Looking back at the past year, for me, it has been a year of joys and sorrows. We were blessed to spend time with family and also friends we had not seen in a long time. I had three new books published. We were able to complete some long-awaited home projects such as putting my bathroom back together after a pipe-breaking disaster, shingling our garage and installing some new windows so we could be warmer this winter. There was joy being cat parents to our shysters who turn our sometimes tears into laughter.

In the midst of happiness there is always sadness. There is sadness when those you love are in pain and suffer broken relationships. There is pain because we lost many friends this year to death. There is heartache watching more people we love endure illness.  There is emptiness when longtime friends move away.  The year was a mixture of both joy and sadness, and I expect the New Year to be the same.

I have written about my evergreen tree in my yard many times. It grows tall and has more tops than an evergreen tree should have. Every year we wait to see if we are going to lose it. One year during the high winds that tore apart our town that evergreen tree took a big lean toward the ground. We could have let it go, but I begged to try and straighten it so it could stand tall and beautiful again.

Going through my many pictures I came across the picture of the leaning evergreen tree. I looked out at the tree standing tall and proud once again in my lawn. It had recovered from disaster. It may have sprouted another top over the years since I last wrote about it. Each year this tree adds to its branches. Each summer it is filled with nests from birds making it their home. It gives them warmth and comfort and cover. Each New Year so far, this tree has weathered the storms. Looking at my tree imperfect and beautiful as it is, gives me hope for the future of my imperfect resolutions and life.

Woo Hoo! The New Year is almost here. Boo Hoo! I don’t want to deal with all the paperwork. Father Time will soon hand over the duties of time to Baby New Year. You know what they say about time:

Time is like the wind, it lifts the light and leaves the heavy. — Doménico Cieri Estrada

Time is making fools of us again. — J.K. Rowling

Time is a figure eight, at its center the city of Déjà vu. — Robert Brault 

Time heals what reason cannot. — Seneca

Time is the wisest counsellor of all. — Pericles

Time is what we want most, but… what we use worst. — William Pen

Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

Time is money. — Benjamin Franklin

When Time is spent, Eternity begins. — Helen Hunt Jackson 

Time is a circus, always packing up and moving away. — Ben Hecht 

And then of course, time marches on. March on this New Year through the thickness of life. Happy New Year.

Take A Flour Shower!

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On a recent cooking show contest one of the judges made a comment about one of the contestants. “She’s a disaster in the kitchen.”

Yes, I could relate to her. Everyone who knows me personally knows I can be a disaster in the kitchen. That contestant, despite turning out to be a disaster in the kitchen with the mess, created some pretty appetizing foods.

I am not known as the Christmas cookie-baking grandma. The other grandmas get that title and my grandkids can decorate Christmas cookies so beautifully that they look like they were professionally done. If I am doing it, I slap a little frosting on, and it’s good to go. However, I do sometimes like to putter around making new things that need to taste good, but don’t have to look good.

Since it is the Christmas season I decided to invite some friends over for coffee. My husband has to eat gluten-free, and so he could join us in the eating, I decided to bake some pumpkin gluten-free doughnut holes before my company arrived.

This is the part where I tell you that my husband and I cannot share a kitchen because my creative way of baking drives Mr. Neat crazy. This day he only entered the kitchen when I asked, and I know he had to clamp his lips shut for a few minutes as he was helping me.

I chose that morning to wear a black sweater. Do you remember the “I Love Lucy” shows where Lucy had flour all over her? Yup, that was me. Mr. Keep Lips Clamped Shut couldn’t keep from laughing and making some kind of remark when he saw me.

There was gluten-free flour all over me. I couldn’t help it if my baking cup had turned into a powder puff.

I have fun when I am putzing in the kitchen, and I don’t care if I make a mess. I would be perfect for a television cooking show for the funny cook.  I don’t agonize over the comments anymore. I have fun and don’t take my cooking methods too seriously. On this baking day, however, I had great joy in a couple of mishaps by Mr. Neat and later on in the day by a story shared by a Facebook friend.

It was finally Mr. Neat’s turn in the kitchen. His job — dipping the doughnut holes in butter and tossing the holes in sugar and cinnamon. It was an easy task if you have the right tools such as a big plastic bag to shake.

We were out. Digging in my cupboard he found an old Tupperware container. When I say old, I mean old, such as 40 years old. You might remember in those days the lids were a little harder to secure.

I left the kitchen since we don’t sync so well. I heard a little noise and a few under-the-breath comments. I had to see what was happening. My floor and tabletops were redecorated with sugar and cinnamon. The top had not held and my kitchen got a shower.

I loved it! Someone else could bake like I do. He was learning from me.

Later in the day another friend of mine had been making holiday treats. She left them on top of her car in the garage to cool. You guessed it — she forgot about them.

In her haste she jumped into her car, backed out of her garage and traveled to her destination forgetting that her holiday treats had been — the operative words — on the top of her car. I loved that she was comfortable enough to share her little mishap with us and take a lot of ribbing.

I don’t apologize for the fact I am Mrs. Mess in the kitchen. My food turns out OK, sometimes delicious as the doughnut holes did, and I have fun not worrying about being so perfect and keeping my kitchen spotless. I am the one who has to clean up my mess.

My grandchildren joke and laugh about Grandma in the kitchen. I am the craft Grandma, and so we do other things. But they also know I make a mess when I do that, too. You should see the mess we make when we make homemade marshmallows.

I work better if I don’t have to worry about keeping everything perfect. It is a part of my creative process even when it comes to cooking. But I do keep it sanitary for those out there who now are scared to eat anything I make. Have you seen my chapped hands from washing them so much?

If you are staying away from the holiday baking because your cookies don’t turn out as beautiful and perfect as your neighbors, don’t worry about it. If you are staying away from creating gifts for your loved ones because they might turn out a little strange, don’t worry about it.

Have fun doing what you love even if it is not perfect. I have to tell you that when you are being unperfectly creative, it will be one of a kind.

Create away and — if you like to take a flour shower — don’t wear black.

What’s A Review To You?

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I spent my weekend reading. It was cold, cold, cold and all I wanted to do was snuggle under the covers and read a book and so I did. I posted my reviews today on Amazon and Goodreads.

I will admit, I am not  the best reviewer. For some reason I can spin a yarn or a tale, but when it comes time to  review something I am occasionally at a loss for words.  I have received good reviews and bad reviews for my books. I take that into consideration when I write a review of something I have read, because looking at the bad reviews that some books receive, and at the other books the reviewer has reviewed, the books haven’t merited the horrible review they got. You know the kind of review I mean? The kind that stabs and is cruel and mean with no purpose except to wound rather than to post a constructive critique that would help the writer. In fact, looking at the other reviews there seems to be a thread where the reader doesn’t like the genre of book that the book they have just reviewed falls into.

Keeping that in mind there are books that I have started and could not get through. Most of them have been free books and not what I normally read, so it stands to reason I might not like them. Others might be poorly written.

When I post a review I see no reason to be cruel if I don’t like a book. In fact, if I quit reading a book that I don’t like, I often times do not leave a review because there are occasions when it is better to say nothing at all. If I leave a review with fewer than four stars I usually leave a gentle reason why I deemed it three stars. I do not do less.

The last three books I reviewed got five stars because I liked them. I didn’t have to muddle through to get to the end. They kept me reading. I give five stars to new authors and award  winning authors. Famous author or indie author, I award the same.  When I give five stars it is because I liked the book. I liked the genre it was in and I felt the writing was good. Having that in mind I will tell you I am not a stickler for perfect grammar and perfect punctuation. Remember I am comma challenged. I am not a stickler if I like the story.  I don’t let the mistakes in editing take away from my enjoyment of the book. I don’t dock for those unless they are way out of line. If I look at the editing too closely I take away from my enjoyment of a good storyline.

If you follow my reviews and you see a five or four star review for a book and you look back through my history and see that is all I am giving —- it is because the other books didn’t make the cut of my even giving it a review. The books I review are books I like. That is the way I do my reviews. That is the way I continue to do my reviews. If you understand that–then you should follow my reviews. If you don’t, then I am not the reviewer for you.

If you want the terrible with the good. If you want the critical, soul destroying reviews then you can find them but you won’t find them where I hang out.

If you enjoy a good book, make sure to leave a review. A good review is a gift for every author.

Here is one of my recent gifts. Posted by Skeeter on Amazon for Granny Skewers A Scoundrel on October 20, 2014

I loved this book. Granny gets in more trouble than Carter had liver pills. What a hoot! And I think the books get better the more the author writes. Don’t know where she gets the ideas, but keep them coming. And I would personally love to see Granny’s hidden wardrobe! GrannySkewers