GLITTERY CHAPEAU INTO THE AIR!! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Sixty is a big number.  It is nowhere near my age, thank you very much.  But it does make seconds into minutes and minutes into hours and then just a general snowball of the passage of time like the "Days of Our Lives" egg-timer turned upside down, flooshing sand away. But my egg timer is very big and still full of sand.

You are now reading Post #60 of the stupendously successful blog, RANDOMONIUM otherwise known as tocatchathought.blogpot.com.  This time last year I had no idea that I would actually sit down and begin this process.  The thought had crossed my mind, barely.  I was always the one who would jump in the pool (fully clothed) in September or March or November just to get the attention and as long as someone was there to pull me out.  Finally, I decided that attempting to write a blog was just like jumping in the green pool water.  Couldn't hurt and might be an adventure just waiting to happen.  And if it didn't work, I could just pull the plug.

So that is the story of this page.  Other than the daily habits required to maintain a healthy person like eating, sleeping and watching t.v., sixty has been a hard number to come up with.  Other great non-accomplishments not numbering sixty in the past year.  I know I haven't cleaned the house sixty times this year or ironed sixty garments thanks to my steamer and no-iron fabric and the cleaners.  I haven't read sixty books but I have been reading much more and know I have read for more than sixty hours.  Horrible confession: I haven't danced or exercised for more than sixty hours so obviously I could stand to lose sixty pounds. 

I have spent more than sixty hours figuring out this piece of tile, and grout colors, and paint colors and drawer pulls and towels colors and this loo and that loo and mirrors and glass and quartz samples and entertaining and supervising the myriad of workmen involved in the process.  I know I have sat at the piano for more than sixty hours and plied my needle and thread into linen like butter for over sixty hours.  Fortunately, I have been able to travel for more than sixty hours.  And I have easily eaten more than sixty ounces of fresh Maine seafood - lobster, haddock, clams, oysters, scallops and halibut.

I was nine years old the first New Year's Eve I was allowed to stay up until midnight.  The other grandchildren were snug in their beds.  My Uncle Johnny had filled my receptive mind with every detail of the ball drop in Times Square, the tradition originally beginning at midnight in 1907.  Fitted out with party hats and noise blowers, Grandmama and I waited for the festivities to begin in the Library/TV Room.

Located on the front of the house, a room with a full wall of shelves became the library.  Besides books, the shelves held valuable family heirlooms and sentimental items like the hotel bell which had become dormant in the last year as they retired after years of  providing a comfortable hotel for locals and traveling celebrities.  In their new spare time, they had renovated a seventy year old falling down house into a  home that would be loved for many, many years.

Three large window seats held every book owned by the well-read families of three generations.  Thousands of conversations hung like spider webs on the forty-four plates leaning against the plate rail at the top of the ten foot ceiling.  A new green Naugahyde sleeper sofa faced the t.v.  A large braided rug made by Grannie, using wool suits and skirts, to waste not - want not, covered the painted floor. 

We were watching Guy Lombardo bring in the New Year on the new color television set which was a very new item at the time.  Grandmama and I were counting down the seconds.  Happy New Year!  I've been known to get a little excited in most situations and being that this was my first celebration to ring in the New Year, I did give it all my gusto.  Woo Hoo!  I flung my party hat up in the air.  And then I couldn't find it because it didn't come back down.  Because I had perfectly tossed my glittery chapeau like a ring at the carney games right on top of a small Majolica monkey vase that was probably already an antique belonging to a great grandmother.  YALAW!  That made the evening more exciting, of course.  Nothing was broken but I do think the little monkey was moved up to some higher shelves along with stern grandparent warnings. 

But it was still a great celebration with my grandmother.  And that also happened to be the year she turned sixty.  I've always liked this picture of her in school, dressed as a clown because it does capture her fun loving spirit and her beautiful dimples.  She is maybe 90 pounds dry but I have the sneaky suspicion she could also be 95 pounds soaking wet after a jump in a tempting pool.  I don't have proof but it does run in the genes.  Or it could just as easily be my grandfather's genes.  What's a girl to do?

One thing is for certain, I have invested over sixty hours since I began this blog August 12.  For me, it has been a great investment in learning and stretching my talent.  It has become a habit, for good and bad.  It is like a new person in my life that I am always wanting to talk to and catch up with.  It has given me a new viewpoint and a point of jumping off from. 

For the new year, a whole new experience I didn't have last January or February.  I do try to do my very best but there is always room for improvement.  You always hear artists say "this is a gift for me."  But it is not corny.  It is true.  This has been a tremendous gift for me.  Writing can make my head hurt or make me stand up and dance.  I take whichever.

To think that someone reads this and enjoys a word or thinks about something new or triggers an old memory, is humbling from my heart.  Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I'm getting ready to throw my glittery chapeau into the air and shout  Woo Hoo!  Here's to sixty more!


Thank you!     Wishing you the most wonderful new year of all, 2014!