Looking Back!

And, judging by this picture, I'm looking waaaaaaaaaaaay back. I have this picture posted on Facebook, but I don't think that I have ever posted it on the blog. This picture makes me realize that I was brought up in "Leave It To Beaver" times! Daddy took this picture in 1957. I'm in the dachshund (rather than poodle) skirt (my aunt made it for my cousin and it had been passed down to me). Here we are decorating...never dreaming what would happen on a fateful Christmas Eve that year. My mother and father were in a very bad head-on collision...before seat belts, cushioned dash boards, etc. The steering wheel saved Daddy from getting hurt very badly ("just" broken ribs). We don't know what Mother hit with her head...dashboard, rear view mirror or what...but she had very bad head injuries and spent many days in the hospital and had to have several surgeries. It really was a miracle that she survived and that she didn't have brain damage. I remember waking up with a doll in my bed that Mother had said she would take out of my bed when she went to bed that night. I can remember sitting on my father's lap in the rocking chair in their bedroom and him telling me that they had been in a car accident and that Mother was in the hospital. This pretty much turned our world upside down for some time. I was almost 10 and my sister was almost 3. But definitely not the way we had planned to spend Christmas! Isn't that the way with so many Christmases...they just don't happen the way we plan! But all ended well and the right doctors were there for my Mother and she had many more Christmases after that one to celebrate. That was 55 Christmases ago! Wow! Time does fly when you are having fun and even when you're not! Our day started out a bit differently as our church only had Sunday School and the 11am service. So we didn't start our day out quite as early as usual. We both taught our Sunday School classes and then went to church. We came home and I have had a very lazy afternoon and evening. Woody did walk this afternoon and then he proceeded to get the beans for our French Market Soup simmering (a source of black-eyed peas for the New Year!) and also made our Mississippi Caviar (another black-eyed pea source). So we are set to see out the Old Year and in the New Year with black eyed peas--just a New Year's tradition--we aren't superstitious--just keeping with tradition! I did come around enough a little while ago and added the other ingredients to the soup after the beans finished simmering. I finished a book and talked to my sister on the phone for a while this afternoon...my accomplishments for the day! I can't believe that tomorrow ends another year. We are seeing 2012 out with quite cold temps. This morning it got down in the lower 20's and it never got out of the 30's. Brrrrrrrrrrrr! We didn't get any more snow/sleet in the night...at least not that we could tell this morning when we got up. Woody had quite a time scraping the car and getting doors opened on the car as all four were frozen shut. Winter has definitely decided to settle in here in Middle TN!