HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

I hope everyone's New Year started off a good as mine. Phone calls with a couple of old, tried and true friends had me feeling happy, touched with a bit of nostalgia. My friend, Millie, lives in Colorado and we had lost contact for a few years. It was sooo wonderful to just pick up like we've always been able to do.....just as if we'd talked only yesterday. It was heart-warming to realize that our souls are still so well matched that we know....really 'know' how the other thinks and feels.
Millie is a breast cancer survivor and one of the true Blessings in my life at so many levels. She first introduced me to Therapeutic Touch many years ago and that healing modality continues to offer me many opportunities to offer TT (as I call it). I used TT with Norm during his recovery and another friend this morning who recently had surgery. And who knows if it does all it's said too........I enjoy it and I feel that the others enjoy receiving it. It seems to help those that ask for it. And for that I'm grateful. I know Norm benefited from it, for sure.
Another old friend called and that was a trip down memory lane also, although a bit sad. His wife, Nona passed over this past year. This was his first Christmas, without his beloved wife cooking up the holiday dinner together. That's a hard one. But there were sweet memories to remember and laugh over as well.......
And I still have a couple of calls to make..........thought I'd better post my blog before this over-hyped motor-mouth starts a-turnin'!!

So......on a walk the other day I had the most delightful treat that waddled out of the bushes.......this porcupine, looking half asleep. We both stopped and studied each other as I tried to remember all that I DIDN'T know about porcupines. "Could they move fast?" No, I decided. "Was it a myth that they can 'throw' their quills?" Yes. But I still kept a leary eye on the critter.....just in case. She (my sighting and I decided it was a girl) was more cautious of me because she climbed back into the bush. I passed and when I was a ways up the hill I looked back and she again came out and ambled across the street. I don't often see porcupines in my walks and I was so glad I had my camera, although not my zoom lens.
These last two photos were of some fungi I saw growing along an old tree trunk........long dead. I think they call those kind of trees a "nursery tree"?? The two here that were growing were only a couple of the various other assorted mushrooms and lichens and fungi.......I don't really know the difference..........just like to take photos of them, especially when they look this colorful and on a fairly dreary day, at that.

OK.......now that pretty much of all the Hoopla of the holidays are behind us, it's time to start making 2011 really count for improving the world, starting with ourselves. At least that's how I try to start EVERY new year........Hey!! It's a start!!

Happy 2011!!