It’s a little late to be suggesting New Year’s resolutions,
but a resolution can be made at any time, not just beginning on January 1. For example, right this very minute I resolve
to not leave my seat to get a cookie! I
would probably break that resolution in the next five minutes if there were
actually cookies for me to get up and get.
I do have a suggestion though, for anyone interested in keeping a three-dimensional
journal of sorts, and it’s fun.
I’ve mentioned countless times of the spare change I find,
mostly pennies, I attribute to my mother sending me messages from
heaven. My sisters have similar things
that happen to them so last Christmas, not this past one but the one before,
the pesky sister made us jars to keep our found money in throughout the
year. I left it on a side counter with a
wee pencil and pad given to me the same Christmas by the Godchild Number 1, and I
took the exercise a step further. Not only did I
put my money in it, but I also used the tiny paper from the tiny pad and wrote
myself little notes with the tiny pencil to remind me of my blessings. I added the notes and other mementos to the
jar throughout the year. I call it my
Lucky Jar.
A few days ago I finally got around to emptying my 2015 jar
and reminiscing over my year. Here are
some of my memories:
There are many notes such as:
January 2nd – “A lazy day. My cat loves me.”
January 7th – “My work life is peaceful”. Unbeknownst to me at the time only a few days
later my work life went from peaceful to hellacious trying to balance two
demanding job positions for the next nine months. It was a relief to deliver that baby.
January 8th – “I saw the sparkles in the kitchen.” Sparkles need no explanation. Either you see
them or you don’t, and I prefer to say I do.
January 17th – “The Goldfinches are here!” If I were to write that again this year I
would have to make a comment like “the ground is moving” because we have so
many they are impossible to count.
January 31st – “Lucky to have friends, good food,
and the Mona Lisa and Moon Pie parade.”
The note from February 7th has a pink puffy heart
sticker given to me by a little girl at church who was sitting behind me. How lucky was I that day?
March 5th - I won my first and ONLY game of
nine-hole-golf. Stacy’s house is lucky.
April 3rd - I saw my first live skunk, or at
least I think it was. It was in the back
of the yard and it was dark, so I can’t be sure, but I thought it was important
enough to write it down.
June 10th - I got to see the 6:00 a.m. deer
crossing my yard. They are so silent and
stealthy it is always a treat to catch them.
August 22nd – “I bathed a cat”. My first and last time. Sadly, she had to be put to sleep in
December. I miss her.
The notes dwindled over time because I was too tired from
work to think about it. But I left more
in the jar than just notes. There were
ticket stubs from movies, concerts, raffles, and ball games. My favorite was the ticket stub and a piece
of red crepe paper from the Weird Al Yankovich concert my family attended in
May, a birthday gift to my youngest. My
note on the stub says “Got to see them smile.”
It was a great night, and I regret there have not been more times like
that over the years.
There are losing lottery tickets, five fortune cookie
fortunes, sea shells from beach trips, a ribbon from a rice bag from a friend’s
wedding, and a paper napkin from the Morning Call coffee shop in New Orleans
from May. We were in New Orleans that
day to buy me a new phone, and took a detour from shopping to spend a few stolen moments
with my husband's aunt, uncle, and cousins on their way to take his cousin Sheryl to
the airport. It was a good visit over
beignets and coffee with good people we do not see as often as we should.
There are wristbands from ball games and a hospital stay. There’s also a pink rubber wristband in honor
breast cancer awareness I bought for students to wear in the university’s homecoming
parade in October. That was my last
official event as their director, and I thought it was a great way to end my
career in that role. It was an exhausting
but rewarding experience, but like I said, I was relieved when that overdue baby
was finally born.
Oh, and then there’s the cash: 55 pennies, 12 dimes, and
three quarters. I also kept an Island
View Casino Cashout Ticket for 11 cents because I refused to leave empty
handed.
There’s a souvenir penny with the impression “I love you” I
found in my couch. No one will claim it
was theirs, so I declare it was from Mama.
Also include is one Sacagawea dollar, a gift from my aunt when she moved
to St. Louis. As far as paper money goes
I kept the $1.00 from my cousin Hope, seed money for my cousin, the Artist, and
I to start our ice cream parlor. It
sounds nice, but it was actually a matching insult for the Artist telling the
highly successfully CPA she could be our bookkeeper. Last but not least is the $100 bill I found
in an old purse before I tossed it in the donate pile. Mama watched out for me
on that one!
One of the last things in my jar was a St. Louis souvenir
tintype with the faded image of a man I think is my dad. I found it my mother’s things, so it is
probably him. Even daddy found a way to send me a little gift.
Looking back over the contents of my last year I remembered
fun times with exceptional people, and realized I had a pretty fine year after all. There were
days when I was doubtful, but the proof is in the jar. How many others received a puffy heart
sticker from little girl, and found $100 in an old purse? How lucky is that? Not really.
Life is what you make of it, and if you want to feel fortunate then you
have to look for the small things to make you happy. My jar overflows.
