Dear Reader:

The old history teacher in me… gets emotional every time I read the Emancipation Proclamation each New Year’s Day -it still sends shivers down my back.

The public reading of the Emancipation Proclamation in South Carolina took place near Beaufort SC at Camp Saxton. 250 years of slavery abolished with the stroke of a pen! Thousands of black soldiers who fought for the Union, as well as, slaves who escaped the plantations … came to hear it in South Carolina.

Today the Emancipation Proclamation can be found in the National Archives in Washington DC.

The first reading took place 161 years ago but aren’t we still fighting to maintain our freedom ? Aren’t we feeling more and more that dictatorship rhetoric is a possible reality…non-believers in the Constitution and that ” We The People” – the true democratic government of the United States… is splintered … thus allowing our personal freedoms to be put in serious danger? We must fight to maintain democracy by our voices and actions! It is up to us to save our personal freedom !

I started off New Year’s Eve eating a delicious spaghetti dinner with the Turners.. so yummy! While waiting to eat… Eva Cate showed me her bedroom that she had completely re/done and the mirror I gave her for Christmas! She is her mother’s daughter… Mandy is the most organized person I know!

AND… to squeeze in one more happy event …New Year’s Eve brought Eloise’s birthday around for the 6th time! Can’t believe my youngest grandchild is turning six… and what an entrance she made… not only arriving just short of the New Year but she also brought SNOW!!! ( Unfortunately she and Mollie were stranded for two more days because the roads were too icy to be allowed to leave. )

Happy Happy Birthday my much loved and precious granddaughter Eloise!

Tommy and Kaitlyn went to Tennessee to visit her grandmother Judy… she is amazing … fighting a second return of cancer in recent years while being in her nineties… stoic pioneer stock with a great sense of humor!

So until tomorrow… Wishing you a year filled with laughter, surprises, and happiness. May we all have a vision now and then, of a world where every neighbor is a friend.

You might remember I predicted two new blooms today and my prediction came true with three buds ready to burst open… replacing the old with the new!