A New Year                                                    01/03/25
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Happy new year, one  and all. I hope your holidays  were safe and fun.
If memory serves  me, this is my 9th year  phlogging on modern gopher.
It's fascinating how  quickly that time seems to have  gone. I mean in
general, of  course. Looking  back at  life always  feels that  way, I
believe.

My new year was quiet. My wife  and I chaperoned a dance. It's amusing
to watch the teens  do their thing, and recall what  it was like being
that age.  I feel like  teens these days are  a lot more  well behaved
than my crew  was, though I'm not entirely sure  that my perception is
accurate. Is it, perhaps, that they have so much access to the horrors
of the  world, and so much  hands-on with virtual reality  et al, that
they tend toward  calm in public? Or is it  the pervasive surveillance
that they grew up with, the knowledge that they're everywhere watched?
Or is it nothing at all, and  I just see through a different lens than
when  I was  young? Sometimes  I think  they should  be a  little more
rambunctious than  they are... but I  feel like in general,  the young
people are quite awesome these days.

On the 1st we took down the tree. We usually take it down around then,
though growing up  we left it up in the  Swedish tradition, til around
the 13th.  My grandma was  Swedish, and she lived  with us most  of my
childhood. Man, I  miss her baked goods around this  time of year. Tea
rings  to die  for, and  cookies  of all  varieties. My  sister-in-law
learned to bake them from her, but  I don't see her much. I'm thankful
for a good memory at least.

We cleaned  our living  room up  as well,  also on  the 1st,  and also
re-arranged some  things. One  big change was  that we  eliminated the
"corner  of life"  that we  had setup.  A few  years ago  our son  was
struggling with depression, and we setup  an area for him to tend some
plants indoors year-round. It helped,  but he's since moved into other
hobbies that help  him, and the care  of that project fell  to me, and
then to my  wife. It had grown  rather large, with many  of the plants
being of the self-replicating variety. We talked about it as a family,
and decided that anyone who wished could claim any of the plants, take
them to their own  space and continue their care on  their own. No one
opted  for that,  and so  the  plants were  added to  the mulch  pile.
Perhaps that  sounds brutal, but projects  in our lives don't  have to
continue endlessly, even the plant ones (we wouldn't do this with pets
or kids, though, of course). Their cycle is complete, for now.

For my part, I  had a harder time letting go of  a Habanero plant that
I'd cared for  for the past several  years. It was also  sad to uproot
the spider plants and see their  fascinating root systems. But I don't
mourn these things;  those plants will compost and be  re-used, and we
live in an  area teaming with life  to enjoy. Plus, we  have started a
more  established outdoor  garden  project, and  that  takes time  and
energy enough. And so, day one was a good cleansing and moving forward
in a few small ways.

Be well for 2025, Gopherspace!