~I implore you to see the universe as a warm and supportive one because you'll look for evidence to support this view. When you anticipate that the universe is friendly, you see friendly people.~ Wayne Dyer

In no particular order, here are a few of the many hearts that have graced my path this past year that hadn't made it onto the blog before.  

And now feeling like Cliff Clavin showing the "Cheers" crew his potato that looked like Richard Nixon, I sign off.  :)

Daisy-Henriette :)

One of the highlights of watching the finale of "Downton Abbey" yesterday was being surprised to see Daisy transformed into my grandmother's 1927 high-school-graduation portrait-self.  Even their dresses were so similar.  I started crying as soon as I saw dolled-up Daisy after Anna styled her new haircut. 

For Grandma's high school graduation present, her older brother treated her to a trip to stay with him and his wife in Detroit.  Below is Grandma on that trip, looking like she could be visiting "Downton's" Mary and Henry at the race track. 

Such a dear hairdo.  I tried its once in my mid-twenties and can assure you that it just doesn't happen with naturally curly hair.  :)

But Daisy and Grandma--and certainly posh Mary--more than make it work.  

Those eyes!

That lace collar!

Sweet, sweet Grandma.  And sweet "Downton" too.  I didn't like a lot of this final season, but the finale was solid.  Their "Happy new year" and the home in the snow, and with Grandma on my mind. . .I cried a few times while I watched this yesterday.  "Auld lang syne," indeed. 

Daffodils and ~Downton Abbey~

It is still a snow-covered world here today, but the first Daffodils have hit the stores.  I look forward to this little treat all year.  And it is a gorgeous blue-skied sunny day so far, making Daffodil Bouquet Day even sweeter.  

March 6th already.  Bring it!  This February was rough.  "And the hits just keep on coming" kept coming to mind each week.  I had five days off beginning February 28th, and I!  completely!  vegged!  out!  I finally watched "Downton Abbey"--ALL of "Downton Abbey," beginning season one Saturday morning and watching the season five finale late Wednesday night--and was as charmed by it as everyone assured me I would be.  Mr. Carson--"[the] old booby!"--has won my heart.  Love that character.  And Violet's laugh makes me laugh every time I hear it.  Mrs. Hughes' "Oh, heavens, girl!  You're building a fire, not inventing it!"  The aqua drawing room with the cream doors.  The swishing of the dear pup's tail in the opening sequence.  The music.  The DRESSES!  Violet and Isobel together.  Lovely Sybil.  Ah!  It was well worth the wait, and it was the perfect way to put a horrid February behind me. And now March is here, and here with Daffodils and sunshine.  Happy day.  ♥

The Past Two (Lazy, Indoor) Weeks

Well, I highly recommend kicking off a new year by conquering one's fears and achieving something that's been on the To-Do list for ages.  It's infused the past two weeks with significantly more lightness and dance-around-the-apartment-to-my-favorite-songs JOY than I usually feel in January and February, for sure.  In the spirit of celebration last week, I treated Stuffed to a comfy new cat bed--and he's actually been curled up in it, wonder of wonders--and a catnip ball, and I gave Mike an amazon gift card.  We can all use some extra fun here in these weeks of day-after-day of forehead-freezing wind and back-wrenchingly slippery sidewalks.  I got my taxes done this week.  And filled out some student loan paperwork that had been on my to-do list too long.  And got another box of books and book characters ready to mail to the school.  And worked at my job, of course.  Otherwise, I have been lazily cuddled up with an afghan more often than not:  reading stretched out in bed, reading in my chair with my feet tucked under me, or refilling glass-after-glass of chocolate almond milk, hot chocolate, or iced tea while making my way through the episodes of "The West Wing" that I missed when it was still on TV.  In short, aside from a few must-do duties, I've spent the past two weeks vegging out, and it's been lovely.  I treated myself to the dvd of the first season of "Downton Abbey"--I've only ever seen some the first episode--and plan to relax with that sometime soon, as well.  Eleanor Roosevelt's book You Learn By Living is brilliant.  I admire her so, especially for her managing her shyness so beautifully.  I have only a few pages left in J.K. Rowling's The Silkworm, Steve Berry's The Lincoln Myth, and Steven Rigolosi's The Outsmarting of Criminals:  A Mystery Introducing Miss Felicity Prim.  I've been skipping around in Frances Mayes' Under the Tuscan Sun--one of your favorite books, Lisa, I know!--since around Thanksgiving, probably.  I'm a fast reader, but I like just reading a section or so of that book and waiting awhile to dip back into it.  It is a soothing read, with some of the most beautiful writing.  Patti Smith's Just Kids has been hauntingly beautiful too.  And "Mrs. Mimi's" teaching memoir, It's Not All Flowers and Sausages:  My Adventures in Second Grade, along with Searching for a Savior:  The Trials and Triumphs of a First-Year Teacher, because I've never been able to shake the idea of giving a teaching career a second go.  (I taught two months of middle school when I was twenty-four.)  We'll see.  For now, I'm reading and watching and thinking and daydreaming:  teaching kindergarteners how to read, solving mysteries with Cormoran Strike and other detectives who need my expertise, assisting Josh and Donna at the White House, falling asleep while an owl watches over me from my bedroom windowsill in Tuscany, discussing shyness and fear-conquering and driver's license-acquiring with Mrs. Roosevelt. . . .The rest of me continually re-wraps itself into a blanket, only getting up to pour another drink or to feed the cat, but my head--Well!  My head and I, we're GOING places, I tell you.  :)

Thank you for all the health and all the experiences that I have lived. . . . ~ Carolina Kostner

The only event of this year's Olympic games that interested me enough to look up the TV schedule for it was the ladies' figure skating--the skating is the only winter event that ever seems to catch my interest, just as gymnastics used to be the one in the summer Olympics--and I found myself enchanted by one of the skaters:  Carolina Kostner.  One of her programs was performed to "Ave Maria."  It is hauntingly beautiful, and all I have read about Kostner's road to this Olympics has only made the performance more touching to me.  Apparently, she has battled injuries the past few years, fell a number of times during her programs in the 2010 Olympics, finishing in sixteenth place--prompting the satirical newspaper "The Onion" to post a headline earlier this week that described her needing to be rescued after falling through the ice this Olympics--and had decided after 2010 to retire from skating.  She took time off but eventually came back to it, deciding to return for the pure love of it, instead of thinking in terms of competitions, judges' scores, and others' expectations.  Kostner, in her "Ave Maria" performance above, reminds me of one of those miniature ballerinas inside a music box.  I have watched this over and over.  In an interview after this Olympics--in which she finally earned an Olympic medal, at the ripe "old" age of twenty-seven--she commented that the this lovely performance "felt almost like a prayer saying, 'Thank you for all the health and all the experiences that I have lived.'"  Ah!  ♥  I think it more than shows. 

The Pig ID Photo Commercial

I practically cackle every time this commercial airs.  ". . .Gots all my pertinents on it and such."  And the bewildered look on the pig's face when the disinterested clerk says "Turn to the camera."  The way she bellows "Next!" like it has three syllables.  I laugh and laugh, every time.  And the shot of his new photo!  Ahhhh!  I love it.  

I first saw it about two days before having my own photo taken for a new badge for work, and it is putting it kindly to say that my old photo was better, making this commercial even funnier to me every time it comes on this winter. 

Halloween Weekend ~ With Paw Prints

Saturday night before watching Halloween movies, Mike, Stuffed, and I finally got around to making the hand/paw print artwork I'd been wanting us to make the past few years.  I was just happy that the project was finally done.

Mike was his usual clever and cynical self--"This is who we are" is the catchphrase from "Millennium," one of our favorite shows--but went along without much fuss.

And Stuffed, upon feeling paint on his paw pads for the first time, inexplicably tried to kneel down onto the paper like a horse. But he didn't fight me too much while I scrubbed his now-blue paw with a warm washcloth, so all's well that ends well.

In any case, it's now on top of our crazy mantel, and I'm delighted by it.

We watched the Snoopy "Great Pumpkin" movie and the Garfield Halloween movie, and at the last minute, I found a Spider-Man cookie to add to Mike's goody bag, so that made me happy too.

Chinese food for Mike and a chicken salad for me last night after work, a phone call from my mom during which I got to tell her that I do indeed have Thanksgiving off this year so will be seeing everyone in a few weeks, ♥ and the pleasure of watching Stuffed in his cozy corner all weekend.

And we're not out of Kit Kat candy bars yet. My kind of Halloween.