Ah, a brand, spanking new year to celebrate.\u00a0 Clean, bright and shiny with nothing to tarnish it for a short time.\u00a0 Once the clock says twelve midnight, we say good-bye to 2016 and hello to 2017.\u00a0 When I was a young girl, this year would have seemed like it would take\u00a0 forever to get here.\u00a0 I would be an old lady then(or older lady, anyway.)\u00a0\u00a0 There would be flying cars and robots doing all our work for us.\u00a0 Well, it hasn’t turned out quite like that, but things sure have change a lot since I was a child.<\/p>\n
When I was a child, we still had television antennas and three or four channels.\u00a0 We had no indoor plumbing and we heated with wood and coal oil.\u00a0\u00a0 We did have electricity and telephones but the phones were connected to the wall and we could only take the phone as far as the cord would stretch.\u00a0 No telephone conversations that the whole family could not hear.\u00a0\u00a0 My daddy drove a big old station wagon and we could sit clear in the back without seat belts and even lay down and take a nap.\u00a0\u00a0 I was raised on a farm where the animals were fed and cared for before my daddy would come in to eat.\u00a0\u00a0 We ate our meals around a table with conversations and no cellphones to interrupt. Now, it’s the other way around.\u00a0Conversations interrupt people texting on their phones.\u00a0 I don’t call that progress.\u00a0 I call that sad.\u00a0\u00a0 Every meal was freshly prepared by my mother, who was the best cook in the county, if not the state. Never any takeout meals.\u00a0 No McDonald’s or\u00a0Wendys when I was\u00a0growing up. Our\u00a0little town did have a restaurant, but I don’t think\u00a0our family\u00a0ever ate in it.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 We washed dishes by hand together, drying them with a towel and talking as we worked.\u00a0 Until we had a bathroom installed, we washed from a wash basin in the kitchen.\u00a0 My mother would cover all the windows with newspaper so no one could see us bathing.<\/p>\n
I enjoyed growing up on my daddy’s farm.\u00a0 I think I had one of the best childhoods anyone could wish for.\u00a0 I spent hours in the barn playing.\u00a0 I dreamed of having a horse and every Christmas I always thought I would get one.\u00a0 I did get one, but my brother helped me buy him and I will be forever indebted to him for being such a good big brother for helping me get my horse.\u00a0\u00a0 I roamed the farm playing with all the animals, even the baby pigs and calves that were born in the Spring.\u00a0 I rode my horse on the country roads and even into town.\u00a0\u00a0 I worked in our garden, fed the chickens, helped my mother clean the house.\u00a0 We were always cleaning house, it seemed.\u00a0\u00a0 We washed clothes in a wringer washer and I loved putting the clothes through the wringer, being careful not to catch my fingers in it.\u00a0 We hung our clothes out to dry. I still miss the scent of air dried\u00a0clothes, fresh from the clothesline\u00a0 My mother didn’t get a washer and dryer until after I got married and left home.\u00a0 Mother did the washing every Monday and I helped do the ironing on Tuesdays.\u00a0 Fridays we always had hamburgers for dinner which was a treat for me.\u00a0 Saturday\u00a0dinners were\u00a0always fish.\u00a0\u00a0 Sunday dinners were almost always fried chicken or beef roast. Saturday night and Sunday night suppers\u00a0we got to eat on a tray in front of the television and it was the only time I got to drink a coke.<\/p>\n
I never thought I would grow up, grow old and not live on a farm.\u00a0 I still have a farmer’s daughter’s blood running through my veins and I always will.\u00a0 I loved when every new year came.\u00a0 I always got a diary for Christmas and loved writing on the very first page about the very first day of the\u00a0brand new year.\u00a0 Some day I will share some of my diaries writings.\u00a0 But not all of them!\u00a0 Some things must remain private!<\/p>\n
We don’t know what this new year will bring.\u00a0\u00a0 I know we will get a new family member through marriage.\u00a0 Will I get a new puppy?\u00a0 More chickens?\u00a0 Will David and I journey someplace new?\u00a0 Will we lose a loved one?\u00a0\u00a0 Will we keep our good health?\u00a0\u00a0 Will I gain a new friend? \u00a0Every day when I get up, I pray God will send me another friend.\u00a0\u00a0 I pray for all my friends.\u00a0 Some have had a bad year and some have had good years. I have lost several friends in 2016.\u00a0 We have seen several celebrities die. Ones I watched when I was a girl.\u00a0 We don’t know what life will bring us in the coming year, but we can know one thing. We can have a relationship with the very One who gave us life and put our trust in Him.\u00a0 My hope is in Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Whatever befalls me, He has my back.\u00a0 I am not alone in this walk through life.<\/p>\n
So for all of you reading this, I pray for God’s blessings on you and that this year will bring you peace, joy and love.\u00a0 Love being the\u00a0greatest of these.<\/p>\n
Happy New Year, friends.\u00a0 Bye.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ah, a brand, spanking new year to celebrate.\u00a0 Clean, bright and shiny with nothing to tarnish it for a short time.\u00a0 Once the clock says twelve midnight, we say good-bye to 2016 and hello to 2017.\u00a0 When I was a young girl, this year would have seemed like it would take\u00a0 forever to get here.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith-and-religion","category-things-on-my-mind"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6386"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6391,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6386\/revisions\/6391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}