2020 My in Review According to My Blog, part two

Note: In preparation for writing today's post, I just reread yesterday's. I want to thank to all of you who read it despite all of the typos and bad grammar it contained. My excuse is that I was interrupted several times while writing it and it was getting late and I wanted to publish it. I hope that I will do better in the future, but no guarantees in that area. :)

July 2020, I did four posts this month.

This month saw me returning to work in the library. At that time, we thought we would have customers back in the building by the time school started. We're still waiting on that one. I celebrated my birthday by paying a tribute to my mother. I was not an easy baby and she was a saint for sticking it out with me. The first nasty comments showed up on my blog after many years of G rating remarks. Luckily, they stopped, although I know they can come back at any time. But my main focus for the month was outside - citing unusually hot weather with no rain. Despite that, I found many flowers blooming in our yard along with zucchini in our garden.

You can see a yellow zucchini developing among the leaves drooping from the heat.

August 2020, I did seven posts this month.

August was a month during which our country was in upheaval to which I obliquely referred to in a post that wondered where all of the calm, rational thinking had gone. Otherwise I found positive things to focus on such as the tomatoes and brussel sprouts we were harvesting along with copious amounts of pears. I spent a long afternoon at the DMV and was thankful for the workers who day after day have to put up with unhappy customers. For one of my walk around the yard posts, I featured insects, but perhaps the most fun of the month was the discovery of a linear park in a nearby town.

We visited the linear park again recently when we saw a boat display.

September 2020, I did five posts this month.

September found me acknowledging that I was cranky. I didn't go into it on the blog, but pandemic fatigue was definitely taking its toll.  It was a good thing that we had already scheduled a week away in WV at Miss Landers' cabin. I documented our trip which included hiking through beautiful scenery as well as visiting historic sites. Also, the end of September marked a first for me - going to a drive-in movie. Ward and I had a good time until our car wouldn't start to go home. The staff were great with their help in finally getting it started.

Spruce Knob, the highest point in WV. This is one of the places we visited.

October 2020, I did seven posts this month.

I started the month with a reoccurring theme on this blog over the years--posting fatigue. That's when I feel like I don't have anything to say and writing a blog post is a chore. As part of a plan forward, I said that I would be featuring posts from the past. True to my word, I reran a post featuring a recipe for a potato soup that Wally made and the differences between rutabagas and turnips. I also reran one of my favorite stories about Sarah and taking time to experience the beauty of the day. The other posts were my standard fare picturing flowers and vegetables (radishes, turnips, and tomatoes) from our yard.

Wally's potato soup recipe was an early post when I was featuring cooking.
I was very proud of myself when I figured out how to put in a link to a printable recipe.

November 2020, I did six posts this month.

In November, I had a mask lapse when I forgot to wear my mask into a grocery store and didn't discover it until I got some sideway looks. I was horrified, but learned that I'm not alone in having a lapse like this. The rest of the month presented posts of things of not much consequence. Pretty normal for this blog. I did a post of lists that included what we had for Thanksgiving dinner (turkey and two kinds of stuffing) as well as the countries I have visited outside the US (Belgium and Japan among others). I mentioned that we got a new furnace and continued to harvest carrots and turnips from the garden. Ward and I took hikes in the nearby mountains and in a bird sanctuary. The month finished up with me reporting on the neighborhood Halloween costume parade.

These late season carrots were the sweetest of the year.

December 2020, I did seventeen posts this month.

The holiday season and the uncertainties of how it was going to be celebrated because of COVID had me feeling restless. In my crazy mind, I thought posting every day for two weeks would be a good distraction. Not one of my clearer moments, but I did accomplish my goal. Three of the seventeen total posts were blasts from the past when I reviewed some of my Christmas memories and how animal crackers figured into the decorations of the season. I also reran a post on different kinds of tree bark. I liked looking at the stark profiles of the trees in the winter and remembered I had done a post featuring that previously. 

In addition, I tried to look for positives in the long dark nights, but mainly the posts revolved around Christmas. I showed you the decorations on my mantel and told you the significance of each. I featured some things we were making for gifts including a wooden matching game, terrariums, and wooden boxes handcrafted by Ward. I had my first ever guest author when Kris told us about disappointments from past Christmases. She has since also written about her COVID 19 vaccine experience. I would be happy if her contributions became a regular thing. But the post that makes me smile the most is the one where I described rejuvenated behavior in my elderly cats with the excitement of Christmas.

Annie, after she had gotten done with dumping out the candy basket of peppermints.
That's still a daily occurrence.

So there you have it, 2020 in review according to my blogs. Did I learn anything from doing this? Maybe. This review confirmed that my favorite kind of posts involve something outdoors whether it involves plants or animals. Also, I can see that I use this blog to try to put myself in a better frame of mind sometimes by doing thankful and positive posts. 

When I first considered doing a blog, my kids told me that I needed to pick a theme or it would just be an online diary. I think they were right, but since I have no goals here except to put some thoughts down in writing, that's okay. Little did they know that maybe having a simple blog about not much more than  my thoughts and happenings may have been the best way to make new friends. A wonderful, unexpected consequence.  And to quote myself, "And for that I am thankful."