A pretty leaf

If this picture posts, it will be a small pleasure that I have learned how to add pictures to my blog.

This is such a beautiful leaf. I picked it up in December, and have kept it on my desk.

Another as at Sam's Club last week. I started to park in a space about 10 cars away from the entrance, and a couple coming toward me motioned for me to come forward, and indicated a parking space much closer. What a thoughtful thing for them to do.

Off to a slow start

I thought I would be posting some small pleasure every day, but I got caught up in retirement, Christmas, New Year, and forgot my password, and have just been wasting time after retirement. (A small pleasure in itself)



Some large and small pleasures in December and January:



Having my children and granddaughter here for Christmas

My other grandchildren calling to wish us Merry Christmas

Patty's art exhibit

Anneke meeting her daughter

Mike's buddies coming by to visit

Marilyn's Christmas Eve family party

The Christmas lights Patty put in our holly trees and shrubs

Using our Christmas mugs for hot drinks

My young cousin's husband's retirement from Brookshires party

The Shreveport Symphony Christmas concert



Marilyn and I are making plans to write some stories about our family when we were growing up. Maybe we'll put some of it online.



If it snows next Thursday or Friday, I don't have to go anywhere. I'm going to make a big pot of stew.

Decorating for Chrisstmas

Patty brought down all of our Christmas decorations from the attic. There are 14 boxes, 2 baskets, a popcorn can, and a plastic shopping bag. Our house has about 1600 square feet of living space, already full of stuff. I love all of our Christmas decorations, but there's no room to put them all out. Soooo, we have to get rid of some of it. There are seven fancy stockings, a set of Christmas dishes, a dozen Christmas mugs, two creche sets, two boxes of tree ornaments, two or three boxes of Santa Clauses in all shapes and sizes, and I haven't opened the rest of the boxes. They have all been small pleasures when we bought and used them, and I hope it will be small, happy pleasures to share them with some family.



Other small pleasures this past week:



The wildfower flowers blooming in the median of Fern Avenue, just norht of 70th St. Thank you to the planters and tneders.



A pair of leopard print shoes I bought at Dillard's. They are so cute.



Writing my annual Christmas letter and making a collage of pictures I took during the year.



My daughter-in-law starting a blog because I did. (She is at blogspot.com as pianoplayer)



Buying poinsettas at Akins with a gift certificate from my friend Modelle.



Shopping and having lunch with my sister.



Patty cleaning up the patio and planting pansies and snap dragons and spring bulbs.



An article in this morning's Shreveport Times, by Wiley Hilburn, about feral cats in a colony near Choudrant that some cat lovers feed and look after.



LSU PLAYING IN THE NATIONAL TITLE FOOTBALL GAME!!!!!!

pianoplayer trying to keep up with smallpleasures2

My fiirst blog inspired my daughter-in-law to start her own blog. I've got to try to keep ahead of her!!!



I meant to post a small pleasure every day, but I am already several days behind. Here are a few small pleasures I've enjoyed this week:



Monday & Tuesday - Dancing With the Stars finalie. My favorite TV reality show, and I liked both finalists.



Wednesday - Every time I drive by the wild flowers blooming on Fern Ave. north of 70th St. I thank the planters and tenders for such a beautiful sight. I made a home visit with a lady from my church to interview a single mother who has applied for one of the Fuller houses (Habit for Humanity) being built in Allendale for low income families. Felt like I was doing social work again.



Thursday - The nurses in the KidMed clinic are so supportive of me and Reach Out and Read. I will miss them when I leave at the end of December.



Managed to get in a little shopping (one of my favorite things), and bought a leopard print blouse to match my new leopard print shoes!!##**$$



Friday - I am putting away the fall and Thanksgiving ornaments so we can put out the Christmas stuff. I'm going to play Josh what-his-name's Christmas album. It's beautiful, and should ispire me to start thinking about Christmas.



This is starting to sound like a diary, or journal. I don't even know how long to leave postings up.



Ahnie - what is your blog address?

My first blog

Well, my name is Daisy. I'm an 84 year old grandmother (my birthday was on Thanksgiving day), and my grandaughter helped me set my blog up. I plan to post small, everyday things, that bring a shot of pleasure, but are not earth shaking events.

To start with, I had many small (and large) pleasures over Thanksgiving holidays in New Orleans with my daughter, grandchildren (grown up) and my grandson's girl friend. It included wonderful food (including a Doberge cake from Gambino's Bakery), shopping, rushing into a bar to see the overtime of LSU/Arkansas game (not a pleasure that LSU lost), my grandson's tour of New Orleans to show us good, and still recovering neighborhoods and institutions, and lots of good coversations with my family.

The I10 interstate between Lafayette and Baton Rouge is closed due to a natural gas well fire close to the road, so my daughter drove all the way on highway 90, which took us through fields of sugar cane being harvested and maritime industries not seen in North Louisiana. It took seven hours to get from Shreveport to New Orleans, but no big traffic snarls, except normal rush hour traffic in NO. We stayed at my friends' home (they went to Destin for the holidays). They are still restoring their Katrina damaged home, and it was a dose of reality for us how much damage was done and how slow the recovery can be.

There was a lot of excitment everywhere in NO, becausse two BIG football games were going to be played right after Thanksgiving. In addition to the LSU/Arkansas game on Friday, the Bayou Classic game, between Grambling and Southern Universities was played on Saturday. We saw the most amazing car in the NO downtown traffic Friday afternoon. It was a Nissan sedan, painted purple and gold (I think that's Grambling's colors), and a big Butterfinger candy bar painted on the side, with the name, "Butterfinger". There were six individual TVs in the car (one for each passenger), and when stopped in traffic, the front doors came all the way up, like a person raising her arms above her head. We would like to know what the Butterfinger connection is, and whose car it is.

My son and daughter-in-law called to wish me "Happy Birthday", and when we got home, another grandson had called to do the same. What great kids and grandkids I have.

Blogging is totally new to me, so you may not find this interesting, but I am taking a small pleasure in writing it down.

Bear with me. I'll find more interesting small pleasures to tell you about. What are yours?

Grandma Daisy