
Lately I’ve been grateful for Mardi Gras.
Continue readingIs it a break up song? Yep. Am I breaking up with someone? Nope.
But this is the song that I’ve been dancing to in these dreary January days. Sometimes you just can’t deny a great keyboard strain.
“If you want freedom,
– lyric by Mt Joy
you better free someone.”
This is our one second video for 2024. You might notice it’s missing days, entire weeks even, especially in January. Mind ya business.
Is this a “highlight reel”? Absolutely.
Does it leave out a lot- some things that we didn’t mean to leave out (because we forgot to get the video before we left! Remind us next time?) and some moments that were less (far less) photogenic? Absolutely.
I gave up on the idea of “one second a day” meaning exactly one second per day a long time ago. In between some of these clips were days where we just went to work and then felt tired after, or, we had such a bad day that we didn’t have a darn thing that felt worth remembering.
But what we are left with is a conglomeration of moments that I’m delighted to notice and remember.
There’s an argument that moving images– short clips, video, etc- elicit memory more readily than still photos. And I think, for my own mind anyway, that this tends to be true. Whatever anyone else may enjoy about the video, or whatever glimpse into my day-to-day it may offer, these short clips do trigger an entire contextual memory for me (at least for now). The joy in rewatching these clips is not that it’s some perfectly accurate record, but that each clip, at some point on that particular day, felt worth capturing.
For what it’s worth, I hope you enjoy this glimpse into our 2024 (but it’s ok if you don’t find it interesting at all, because it’s really just for me).

Happy 2025 to all! 🩷
My Mom started collecting Fontanini figurines in the early 90s. My Great-Grandmother Jewel was a big contributor to her collection.
I remember the small figures arranged in the dining room on the buffet, perfectly at eye-level for curious kids. I distinctly remember the year Grandmother gifted my Mom the inn and innkeeper, expanding the scene beyond a stable… from there the originally intimate gathering of a few animals and the Holy Family grew into a veritable village, now consisting of ~45 characters. From shepherd to angel, Roman Centurion to Rabbi, rug salesman to pregnant washerwoman.
Because the figures are virtually unbreakable, the children of the house had full leave to move, arrange, and play with the figurines at will throughout the Christmas season. As a child, I enjoyed reading the tiny booklets that came with each character- telling their name, backstory, and relationship to the birth of Jesus.
When it comes to Christmas nostalgia, “the Fontanini” (as they are called) are key players in my memory in terms of both decor and interactive play.

I recently found a Fontanini Nativity set of 7 pieces at a thrift store for $28 (quite a deal!).
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Lately I’ve been grateful for pottery.

And for camellias.

For kilns.

And for kittens.
Happy November, all!