Day 22 - Goodbye 2012 - Remembering and Moving On

I'm in the middle there somewhere.

When your children are in their 40's and 50's and your grandchildren range in age from 4 to 24 and two great grandchildren will soon become three great grandchildren, you cannot look ahead without looking back.  If you are a teenager, do not hurry.  If you are in your 20's, do not worry.  If you are in your 30's or 40's, your best days are still ahead.  If you are in your 50's, you are a little late for a mid-life crisis, so buck up.

I am incredibly blessed with family.

And blessed to have a pool for those, I love, to enjoy...

and knowing that their memories will include learning to swim in my pool.

If you are in your 60's like me, especially since I will join those in their 70's this year, my suggestion is that you don't allow anyone to discourage you from looking back and remembering the 'good old days'.  As for me, I'm grateful to be able to count them as 'good'.  The past is a wonderful place to visit but none of us should want to dwell there. 

I'm blessed to be surrounded with God's little creatures.

And I especially appreciate this Cardinal who nests, each year, in the Rambling Rose just outside my window.

 My great hope is to be able to look back at 2012 and refer to it as 'good old days' as well.  So on this last day of 2012, I plan to do a great deal of remembering and counting my many blessings.  Tomorrow, along with cooking up my Southern dose of New Year Luck, ham bone and black eyed peas, I intend to do a great deal of looking forward. 

But looking backwards, for a moment now, affords me the special opportunity to appreciate the abundance of food with which my family and I have been blessed because I well remember a time when we were hungry...and I don't mean didn't have enough to eat, I mean real, food-less, hunger.  I'll share the story one of these days.

Independence Day affords me many opportunities to look back happily as family has gathered at my house summer after summer...one of my very favorite things and I look forward to it every year.

  And, I will attempt to explain why I started counting UP the days of my life.

I love the little studio my son built for me.

I love that we can pull off summer themed parties in February....

...and growing things...

and stormy days at the beach...

and the fact that my Hubs is so easy going...

and that spring always arrives...

and that I find beauty in the way light plays among simple things...

and I love bubbles!
May we all be blessed in the coming new year!