New Year's Eve

The last day of 2020 was a rainy sort of day, not terribly cold, but certainly a wet one.  We were in the kitchen looking out over the back yard - both front and back have so many leaves on that need to be blown or raked away.  We'll wait until it dries out.  But out there in the back yard was a fairly large branch covered in tree fungus - it had a striking appearance amongst the darker wood there.  So we set out to take a few photos of it.  Madison and I went out on a photo assignment to the edge of the woods, there to take some pictures you see below:

We had a small breakfast this morning, and did a few bits of cleaning up.  Nana has been weepy again, and sometimes we have meetings with the others in the house just to encourage ourselves. We told Madison how proud we were of her for handling things as she has.  It's been challenging, as Nana is frequently throughout the day just weeping and muttering to herself.  Sometimes when she's on the precipice of one of these episodes, Madison will snap her out of it, calling out, "Hey, Nana!"  It's a friendly call-out, and it's as if her grandmother is suddenly back here on earth again.  Sadly sometimes this doesn't last too long.  Nothing does.  This is a wound that time cannot heal.  The only thing we can do is keep her distracted, and that was part of the game plan today with our trip to the movie theater.  

I just had this craving to go see a movie again.  The pandemic killed our local theater, so we had to drive further south to one that was still showing movies.  It isn't showing many, and many people aren't coming to the theater, and there's all this business about social distancing.  Truth be told, I like social distancing in movie theaters.  I always stress out about that seven-foot tall guy with a top hat that sits directly in front of us.  Or the one holding an infant.

We spent a good deal of money at the theater today, but I justified it with the thought that the last time we were at the movies, it was on March 7th.  We saw "Onward" at the movies, and we had no idea that would be the last movie we'd be seeing until the end of the year.  Another aspect to going to the movies today is that it is a tradition of sorts.  We went to the movies on New Years Eve last year, down in Florida.  We actually went with Nana then - and Ba-Ba as well.  We didn't bring any of that up, of course.

Anyway, we saw "Wonder Woman 1984," which was a pretty decent movie.  The general feeling from our crew was that the first one was a lot better, but it was still great to see some action sequences with Wonder Woman, and there's just something about her character too - she's a great superhero, and is currently carrying the DC Comics characters franchise.  We reserved our seats dead center in the back row, just like we always do at the theater.  And we got the largest tub of popcorn as well! 

But we picked up one of these popcorn tins too - doesn't that look delicious?  I missed movie popcorn so much.  The theater itself is pretty nice, an AMC theater just off of exit 13.  There are so many movie theaters closed right now, and so many movies not playing, which is why there are so many movie theaters that are closed.  So in a way, Wonder Woman is an even bigger hero for us now, because she's giving many people a movie to go see, and trying to open up the movie theaters again.  

We got home, and it was later.  It was a long movie, with trailers in front, and about forty-five minutes away.  So going to the movies was a pretty time consuming thing.  But it was nice, and we drove home in the pouring rain, going straight there, as we like to be there on New Year's Eve, and not out and about.  It's safer.

We had the fire going, and for just a few moments, there was a bit of bliss, as I got to sit and read a book by the fire, still working on "Moving Pictures."  It's an enjoyable read.  I love - and miss dearly - Terry Pratchett.  

Madison took this photo of her porgs in front of the fireplace tonight - we had just started the fire, and had it crackling in the fireplace all night long until the new year.  The rain let up a bit, and our neighbors across the street were shooting fireworks and using sparklers with the kids, so Madison went over to join them for an hour or so.  

She took this picture and a few others.  It was cold, but not frigid, and it was fun saying hello to everyone before the new year.  Nana said she hadn't seen the first Wonder Woman movie, so while Madison was spending time across the street, we were watching that on the television.  It was a Wonder Woman sort of day!

After the movie, Nana was fading somewhat, and we decided to pull on those crackers right there and then.  We each took turns grabbing an end, and amazingly, each one of us wound up winning a prize inside.  Of course, regardless, everyone would have a prize.  But it just worked out that way tonight, that we each won once.  As for the prizes, they weren't necessarily anything to run around screaming with joy about, but they were fun little trinkets.  The paper crowns went straight on our heads though!

Nana went to bed, and we still had a few hours to go until midnight.  We popped in another movie, the new Pixar movie, "Soul."  It was actually really good, as you'd expect from Pixar.  We watched something online afterwards to see where the Pizza Planet truck was.  Sure enough, it's in the movie with all the usual Easter eggs.  As for the movie itself, it's super creative with some wonderful characters.  It's odd not seeing the next Pixar movie actually in the theater, but this was fine, especially on New Year's Eve.

There were plenty of fireworks going off around our house tonight - with the leaves off the trees you could really see further along the horizon, and right from our windows see all the tremendous fireworks that the neighbors were setting off.  We have people who use some huge ones that I've only seen purchased by amusement parks or townships on the Fourth of July.  The skies were illuminated with color again tonight.  It certainly wasn't like the Fourth of July, but it was still a noisy celebrating sort of night.

We got to midnight tonight, and the three of us once again counted things down.  It was a quiet countdown compared to previous years.  Times Square was closed, and Disney was showing a rebroadcast of a fireworks show back in 2017, but despite them saying they were going to put a link up on their blog, they never did, so that didn't time out at all.  So it was all a bit different than usual.  

But that's okay.  We were together, and we are okay.  Mom had some fears and pains today, thinking it might be kidney stones again.  But thankfully, it was not that, otherwise this evening would have been quite a lot different!  And there's the thing:  this year has thrown some tremendous curve balls.  But God has brought us all through it, and rather than focus on the bad, we'll focus on how He has preserved us and brought us to the year 2021.  

Tonight we read again, our first devotional of 2021.  We were back in Judges of course, reading about Deborah this time.  We were talking about the trap that Sisera fell into with the wet and soggy plains, and of course the graphic violence of Jael.  She may have been trying to one-up Ehud there!

We even read a tiny bit from Narnia tonight before saying our prayers.  It wasn't long before all of us were asleep though.  I think it was one in the morning when we went to sleep, all of us, with the rain falling outside, and knowing we can all sleep in tomorrow morning.

Happy New Year!