13: Ringing in the New Year
1. My blog is like the economy. It seems to be in a recession. Visits and comments, like retail sales, are down from last year.
2. In the evening when I’m upstairs typing on the computer and I even hear “Deal or No Deal” on TV, I have to go down and shut it off because I fear if I don’t Nielson will think I like the show and it will stay on air longer than it should.
3. I’m typing this on New Year’s Eve. I can see the moon through the trees. It looks like THIS poem.
4. “Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time’ is to say, ‘I don’t want to’.” ~ Lao Tzu
5. Josh, his brother Skye, and I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button over the holidays, where Brad Pitt’s character is born old and becomes younger with the passing of time until he dies as a baby. I came away thinking that the premise wasn’t so much stranger than the fact that we watch our babies transform into adults and then they watching us grow into old people. Truth is at least as strange as fiction.
6. I’ve been to Time Square for New Years Eve, discovered it’s an overrated mostly drunken mob, and I never even got close to seeing the ball.
7. Today’s Soundtrack is THIS, which I first heard while driving in a tunnel in Boston under the influence of the 60’s.
8. This is really sad. LOOK at what the Thirteen Thursday Hub looks like now.
9. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Doug at Blue Ridge Muse has a list of the top 2008 Floyd stories HERE.
10. I spoke with Joe on the phone. He’s away, busy managing a five day New Year’s Teen Meditation Retreat. Tired and a little homesick, he said whenever he needs a boost he looks at a photo of our 7 month old grandson Bryce or remembers that Barack Obama is president.
11. And I am stuffed with facts…overweight with the nightly news…Poetry is the bell …that saves me from being…all-consumed ~ From “Political Prose is Hard Labor”
12. I once called poetry a sweet tinnitus ringing in my ears.
13. Speaking of ringing and bells, HERE is Bryce playing with some of his Christmas toys and navigating one in particular (it rings) that proves to be a handful for him. I video-taped this today (Wednesday) when it was 2008 and now it’s 2009. Happy New Year one and all!
January 1st, 2009 12:57 pm
Thanks for your visit (via Sandy) and for the great link here to the Chambers Brothers! I love that song – I’m stuck in the 60s most of the time, musically anyway. Enjoyed my visit to your blog.
January 1st, 2009 1:38 pm
Love #4.. the Lao Tzu quote.
I can hardly wait until next Christmas when my grandbabies are more into it all. Bryce is so adorable with his new toy.
January 1st, 2009 2:26 pm
I find blog statistics strange. Numbers go up and down from day to day seemingly without reason. Definitely want to see Benjamin Button. I got to thinking this about the premise: if we live long enough we become like a baby again.
January 1st, 2009 2:35 pm
So true. He died looking like a baby but was old with dementia. But in a way babies have a sort of dementia. I mean that their mental facilities are not developed so they know nearly nothing. One of the most interesting parts of the movie (besides all the fantastic make-up accomplishments) is how he and his love had only a window of time to be happy together when they were nearly the same age. Meeting in the middle, he called it.
I think my blog stats peaked in the second year. The third year has been down in general (but my Floyd readership has gone up) but I wonder if all blogging might be down. I will miss the high traffic of 13 Thursday. It pushed us to visit and be more social.
January 1st, 2009 3:01 pm
Is Thursday Thirteen being discontinued? You can still do your own, of course…so clever they are…but I know what you mean about it being a social vehicle. I participate in several photographic memes that gets me connected to others. Do you know about Sunday Scribbles or Weekend Wordsmith? Those are two writing memes that you might enjoy.
January 1st, 2009 3:09 pm
Ahhh…Colleen – My wish is that you have a Wonderful New Year! Much happiness and love to you and yours…
(I read – I just sometimes don’t comment – but, you know that!)
January 1st, 2009 3:21 pm
I don’t often comment but I look forward to reading your blog every day. All best wishes for a wonderful 2009.
January 1st, 2009 3:57 pm
I know what you mean, I miss TT too.Happy New Year!!!
January 1st, 2009 6:09 pm
Ha ha! #2 cracks me up – I cringe whenever I hear “Open The Case” – ugh. Of course I willing contribue to lots of other completely ridiculous shows staying on the air because sometimes I just need mindless blather to entertain my lazy brain.
We plan to post a new version of T13 called Thursday Thoughts each week instead. We met more interesting people through T13 than anything else, and it was our favorite one to do. In case you didn’t hear before they took the site down, the grandaughter of one of the T13 hosts was diagonesed with leukemia last month so they posted that they would no longer have the time to dedicate to T13. Very sad. I hope things go very well for that little girl in 2009 and beyond.
January 1st, 2009 7:09 pm
I always come away inspired by your posts and seem to find in you a kindred soul
January 1st, 2009 7:38 pm
I’m with you. The Deal or No Deal show gives me heartburn!
January 1st, 2009 8:21 pm
Re: #1 … methinks that’s true for MOST (if not all) of us.
I hadn’t LOOKED at the T-13 hub because I’ve not been participating lately (out of respect to Lao Tse, I decided NOT to say I’ve not had time). I confess I ‘lurk’ … read you in my ‘reader’ often when I’m crunched for time (oops, there I go again) but with the PSE6 classes I’ve been taking I’ve had to cut back on blog visiting in order to deal with ‘stuph’ in the ‘real’ world. I’m glad to have encountered you in this ‘virtual’ world. Happy New Year to you and yours.
Hugs and blessings,
January 1st, 2009 8:31 pm
I love the Byrce movie and he looks like YOU in that one.
I forgot today is Thursday, it feels like Saturday. xo
January 1st, 2009 9:39 pm
6. I’ve been to Time Square for New Years Eve, discovered it’s an overrated mostly drunken mob, and I never even got close to seeing the ball.
ME 2 and while TT doesn’t exist as I originally knew it I’m still doing it…because I like it. 😉 Happy New Year.
January 1st, 2009 10:31 pm
I love the quote about time. And that was a great soundtrack. I knew you were a hippie, lol.
Happy New Year!
http://www.GreenerPastures–ACityGirlGoesCountry.blogspot.com
January 1st, 2009 11:46 pm
Happy New Year, Colleen. I think you are getting as many visits, but people are just stingier with their comments nowadasy, seeing as how we are all so busy! Happy New Year!
January 2nd, 2009 2:09 am
I’m actually up from last year, but with TT’s hub gone, I don’t think it will stay there.
January 2nd, 2009 2:17 am
Happy New Year.
January 2nd, 2009 2:26 am
Aww ! that hysterically waving woman in Time square was you ?? I recognized you immediately ! I saw it on TV, lol !
Somebody told me that the TT people had a personal family tragedy and that’s why they don’t do it anymore I also was very surprised. I think we should go of our own then.
January 2nd, 2009 3:33 am
I just looked to what remains of the TT hub. Yes, that is very sad.
I once watched about ten minutes of Deal No deal and felt vaguely ashamed.
January 2nd, 2009 7:59 am
My stats are down, too. I really think people just are so pressed for time these days that it’s difficult to find the time to read and comment regularly, especially when you have dial-up like me. I still enjoy your blog very much, and it might encourage you to know that even after over a year of blogging, my best day of stats remains the day in 2007 that you mentioned me in your Thursday Thirteen! That is certainly a testimony to your big readership!
January 3rd, 2009 12:12 am
6 and 12 nice for dif reasons. we thought of going to NYC for NY’s this year and didn’t We didn’t miss much I guess. 12, nicely put.
1. could see that. there’s been a continual increase in number of blogs, further fracturing the old monopolies of information. and meantime, a migration away from blogs and to twitter, facebook and people who tried blogging and it was a poor fit for, heading back offline.
January 3rd, 2009 7:43 am
Give me more Bryce ringing in the ?New Year haha
January 4th, 2009 3:20 pm
I’ve found a few TTs still around–wrote mine before I knew it was gone. Yes, stats are down–sort of like my investments! I don’t do social sites or twitter. http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2009/01/thursday-thirteen-in-central-ohio.html
I liked #4–I wrote about time today (Jan.4)
January 6th, 2009 10:16 am
– omg I laughed so hard reading #2 🙂
– Love #4 so much I’m going to put it on my blog’s sidebar, thank you!
– I don’t understand why they let the T13 go, why they didn’t just let someone else run it. I know they had offers. Whatevs.
Oh, and Happy New Year 🙂 If I haven’t told you, I’m glad you’re still doing 13 on Thursday!
January 7th, 2009 6:21 pm
I posted a new TT. I intend to keep doing them. 🙂