It's the New Year, everyone! It may be raining or snowing or sunny where you are today, but no matter where you are, we're past the fireworks moment. That moment was not really about it being 2022 so much as kicking 2021 to the curb permanently...for many of us!
If any of you had a positive and blessed 2021, that is wonderful, and I wish you the same happiness this year.
For many others, however, it was not a positive and blessed year. Many had personal or health (or both!) problems. COVID pretty much ruled the year with vaccination side effects or not knowing what to do about getting the vaccination or its booster, and the damn masks!
And then there was the political turmoil. The events of January 6, 2021, are still fresh in the minds of many, and like the vaccination controversy there are varied opinions on what actually happened. This is the first year in my life that an ex President remained in the public eye and attention after he left...because he wanted it that way.
As for me and my family, we hung in there as always. Vickie had a hysterectomy and I was lucky (har har)enough to get 2 kidney stones blasted. Vickie got us a deal online for 2 bikes, and in the late Spring and most of the summer I rode all over the northernmmost neighborhoods where some orchards and many horses resided...almost a rural Pennsylvania feeling, except the high humidity was missing.
Working summer school provided funds for some short getaways in late June and all of July, the highlight being Cedar City, Utah for me.
Thankfully we teachers were able to start and STAY in our classrooms with our kids, little to no virtual quarantine emergencies.
Celebrities we lost (ones I am familiar with anyway): Peter Scolari, Willie Garson, Norm MacDonald, Charlie Watts, Jackie Mason, Charlie Robinson, William Smith (I didn't know this one till today!), director Richard Donner, soap performers Ray MacDonnell and Stuart Damon, Clarence Williams III, Arlene Golonka, Gavin MacLeod, B.J. Thomas, Robert Hogan, Charles Grodin, Tawny Kitaen, Olympia Dukakis, Frank McRae, Johnny Crawford, Jessica Walter, George Segal, Rush Limbaugh, Larry Flynt, Christopher Plummer, Dustin Diamond, Cicely Tyson, Cloris Leachman, Hal Holbrook, Larry King, Hank Aaron, Phil Spector, Joanne Rogers, John Reilly, Marion Ramsey, Tanya Roberts, Gregory Sierra, and, just yesterday, Betty White....proving 2021 had one more groin kick for us all.
Celebrity deaths aside, many of us suffered the loss of a friend or family member, which makes the loss much more heartfelt. My mom lost her friend Rose, whom she had met at the National University library in San Diego almost 29 years ago. She was a very sweet woman, I remember her fondly. She passed at age 73. We also lost our elderly former downstairs neighbor Norma in June. Even after we moved into the house, we continued to come help her with her cable remote or pick things up (like smokes) from the store. A very kind woman who had known Natalie since she was 2. Norma passed at 89.
This may sound trite, but let us take the tragedies and bad news of 2021 and do what we can to make 2022 the best we can make it. My advice...make reasonable goals you can attain and maintain, not crazy half-hearted "resolutions"...New Year's resolutions at heart are a meaningless tradition passed on from other generations who usually failed at resolutions as well...and as we are a nation often fails to learn from past failures, let's break this bad habit once and for all!
A happy blessed and successful 2022 to all! 
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