“Life is like an ice cream cone…
You have to learn to lick it!”--Charlie Brown
Yesterday for my lunch break I went to the library to take some books back and to pick up one I had on hold. It feels a little late to read it now that Christmas has passed, but then again a Christmas spirit without the materiality and media is nice to carry always. The book is called The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol Rescued his Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits (2008) by Les Standiford. I finished A Christmas Carol in December and loved every word of it. I also started reading A Tale of Two Cities on Kindle. I was immediately hooked and love the language. The first part was clear to me and I could see the details of the characters and setting and it made sense to me. However, I am a little bogged down by the second part so far. I’m certain that it will come together for me as I continue reading.
When I left home yesterday I decided to take my camera. I grabbed it and attached it to the satchel I carry around as my purse. When I took my lunch break, I decided I would go in search of a 2012 calendar for work—one of the daily calendars. I usually try to get to the stores and purchase them at 50% off. As I walked, I couldn’t believe what a nice day it was. The air didn’t feel icy like it has and the brisk pace of my walking was making me feel warm. It was like a spring day in winter. I told the day how beautiful it was and smiled up at the sky. I had my camera with me but I didn’t see anything that I wanted to snap. When I got to the store, there weren’t many calendars left. Last year there were. I left with nothing. I had stopped into another small store before that. Nothing. I was determined. As I wound my way back, there was one last store. They had about five calendars and only one daily calendar. I wanted one then and there and I liked that it was a Zen calendar. It was the last one. I ended up paying full price.
I usually have a few daily calendars around my desk area. Back at work, I decided to quickly hop onto Amazon.com and search for The Booklovers Calendar. Then I saw there was a word origins calendar. I added it to my cart. After checkout, it didn’t look like the word origins calendar was available. I didn’t want to wait and have it not show up. I canceled that one and tried to find something humorous in its place. I settled on The Argyle Sweater Calendar. Both calendars were 50% off but with tax and shipping, it all evened out. I was relieved to have my one calendar already and two on the way.
The end of the day came and I walked to the car. The sunset was gorgeous. Muted amber tones. I took my camera out and began snapping. I needed to go to the grocery store before home. As I continued driving, the sunset colors changed. They became a molten ruby red. I pulled over to the side of the dark road. I snapped away. For an amateur photographer such as myself, the images don’t necessarily transfer the way I saw them with my own eyes. This one though feels close.
A few months back I purchased Chat Pack: Fun Questions to Spark Conversations. Here’s one of the questions: “If you were making a list of the five things (not people!) that make you happiest in your life, what five things would you write down?”
The sunset—nature is definitely on my list of five.
