Collage

Tonight we turn the calendar to a new year, venturing more fully into a new decade.  What amazing changes 10 years can bring...
During this past decade, we buried both my mother and my father...saw the Twin Towers crumble and our country engage in wars on two fronts (our men and women in uniform still remain in both Afghanistan and Iraq).  Our family celebrated two weddings and a birth,  joyfully welcoming Chris, Alexis, and little Alexander to Clan Campbell.  Jim endured heart surgery, and I battled breast cancer.  Matthew sustained his ongoing productive life in the community, Barbara left Pennsylvania and settled in North Carolina, initially a city dweller who now enjoys the country life with her family.  Robert fulfilled his dream of being a full time actor, later changing careers to assume a different stage and role, that of classroom and teacher.  We bought bikes, and discovered trails, plumbing the beauty of Central Pennsylvania.  We reunioned and reunited with friends and family.  We added on to our home, twice expanding and redoing to make Woodland Drive a welcoming place for family and retirement.  We traveled to Sunset Beach, Moorestown, and Pittsburgh, seeking pleasure and seeing family.  Our niece gave birth to a beauty named Lydia, after my mother and her great-grandmother. Jim retired while I continue to teach, my school life changing dramatically as a result of the digital age.  We email, iChat, iPhoto, Facebook, Flip Video, TiVo, and blog.  We recycle, reuse, and "repurpose." We buy and "eat locally."  I can, jam, and fill our freezer, even this year with a hog purchased from the farm of one of my students. I rediscovered sewing and continued to knit my way through the seasons, marking birthdays with socks, Christmas with woolens for heads and hands, and the birth of babies with blankets and sweaters.  Prayer shawls and the sacred space they create enchanted me.  We added rescued cats to our empty-nest family--Katie and Max.  And now Max, Gracie, and Lily who add immeasurable spark, warmth, companionship and joy to our days.  We walk to ameliorate hunger and end cancer.  We seek justice for the homeless, the hungry, the disenfranchised, and the disabled.  We worship, we pray, we petition, and we give thanks for all the good gifts of our lives....

Happy New Year...may 2011 bring more gifts untold...