family pictures

8 01, 2024

It’s a Holiday Wrap

By |2024-01-07T07:20:52-06:00January 8th, 2024|Holidays, Writer's Life|0 Comments

Our holiday was a whirlwind that became a tsunami with twenty-three gathered before Christmas Day to celebrate and have a first-ever all-of-us picture taken, including our OES who was the best behaved.

Dealing with that many personalities was a challenge. The photographer had her hands full and did a fantastic job. Considering the drama surrounding it, it turned out well.

We all survived and the whole event provided writer me with lots of characterization and conflict ideas for future protagonists.

The tree is undecorated, bundled, and stored in the barn shed to await another year.

The treasured pinecone people and tiny village houses from my grandparents’ home are nestled all snug in their box and stored away in the closet to await next Christmas’s unveiling.

January 1 is the clear-cut start for another trip around the sun. Another 365 opportunities — 366 this year since it’s a leap year — to pause and think about how we can best use our time in this new year.

That usually means making resolutions or setting goals.

According to Forbes.com, New Year goals include quit smoking, fitness, finances, mental health, diet,  work-life balance, more time for loved ones, learning a new skill, drinking less, meditating more, and traveling more. All of these are admirable goals and intentions.

The sad fact is most goals and resolutions will fail miserably and fail quickly. Statistics on how long New Year’s goals last do not put the New Year tradition in a favorable light.

Most goals will fail within 3-4 months. Only one percent of goals last twelve months. So, you’re not alone if your intentions peter out.

Give yourself grace when you do fail, “The beauty of goal setting is you don’t need a ball drop or cannons of confetti to signal a fresh start—you can recommit to your resolutions at any time.”

Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again, to paraphrase a song lyric.

Me, I’m going simple for 2024. Only one goal. Finish my new romantic suspense, DEAD BODY GIRL.

Frankly, I’m more than ready to settle into an imaginary world where the writer is in charge. 2023 is good and well gone, holiday stress is over. Time to move into 2024 with all its promise and clean pages.

What about you? Any goals or resolutions?

16 01, 2015

Miller Farm Family Picture

By |2015-01-16T06:00:16-06:00January 16th, 2015|Miller Farm Friday|2 Comments

A blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

For some reason, this Christmas I felt compelled to take a family picture.  Matthew will be graduating from high school in May and so no one will be living at home.

Of course, everyone will come home for holidays – at least I hope they will. In any case, I convinced the family to get together for a picture.

familyThis looks great – right? Well what I’m not showing you are all the previous attempts.

We started in the living room with the camera set on a timer. Brian pushed the button then jumped over the coffee table to sit on the couch.  The flash did not go off.  We repeated this process many times with the same results.

I kept flashing back to all the Christmases where my father set the camera up on the bar and ran around to get in the group picture of all the kids and spouses. It made me laugh then and still makes me laugh to think about it.

Anyway, we decided to move the party outside.  This way anyone driving by could witness the insanity that is Miller Farm.

Turned out this was actually a much easier process. Until I suggested we include the four-legged family members.  Each person would hold his or her own dog.

Since I don’t officially have a dog, Matt suggested we get a chicken for me to hold. We all vetoed that very quickly.  Bella and a chicken in the same picture could not turn out well.

Instead, I stood surrounded by the people and dogs I love so well. family with dogs

Maybe next year we’ll figure out a way to include the chickens in the picture.

Go to Top