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This is February, time to look at New Year’s Resolutions. During the Christmas holidays I was deep in nostalgia about past occasions. The new year makes me think of new beginnings.

I don’t usually make New Year’s Resolutions. Not that I don’t have any bad habits or couldn’t use some more good ones, I just doubt whether I’ll do much changing.

I am breaking one bad habit. I got a head start right after Christmas. I won’t disclose my secret vice but I am leaving it behind in the old year. Sometimes I lapse but I’m doing pretty good.

Most of my goals are to keep doing what I’m doing. I’m still enjoying writing my blog. It’s about the amount of writing I want to do. I don’t have the energy to chase down magazine stories and submit proposals as a freelancer nor write another book. To pen my memoir, “A View from a Midwest Ferris Wheel,” I had to learn to write creative nonfiction. It took me ten tears to have it ready to submit to a publisher.

One thing I’m trying to do is walk through the house in the evening during each commercial while I’m watching TV. I sit too much.

One of my writer friends covered the suggested 10,00o steps daily inside her house. She had a pedometer to record her movements. I don’t expect to cover that much ground but I think moving during each commercial is a reasonable goal. The ads used to occur every fifteen minutes but I think they are oftener now but I haven’t timed them. That was when one business sponsored a program such as Chevrolet and Dinah Shore. Now, multiple products are hawked during each break and they last about four minutes, I think.

Are you keeping up on your New Year’s Resolutions or didn’t you bother to make any?

The first thing people notice about a woman is her hair. Changing the style, alters how a female sees herself. A good cut can lift someone out of a low movement, restore energy and identity. When someone walks out of a salon feeling like themselves again–that’s impact.

A bad whittling can take weeks to recover as the person waits for locks to grow out. Hair normally lengthens about 1/2 an inch per month. It can be slower for older adults due to shrinking follicles and hormone changes. As we women age, we also notice out hair becoming thinner.

The hairstylist influences cultures more than most people realize. Hair shapes fashions, defines decades and creates icons. Remember the ’70s when many women wanted to look like Farrah Fawcett on the TV program, “Charlie’s Angels?”

The beautician sees her customers through every chapter of life and supports the person in the chair. She holds a level of trust most professionals never touch–clients may reveal things they don’t tell family, friends or therapsists.

I’m not the type to divulge secrets but I continue to be friends with the woman who did my topknot for years. Since she retired, the two of us continue to get together for a chat over lunch. She referred me to another stylist in the same Rockford establishment where I recently had my hair cut.

A trim is the only reason I go to a salon about every two months. With the popularity of straighter styles, I no longer periodically endure the two-hour, chemical torture of a permanent to make my stubbornly, straight hair curly. I began doing that when I was four years old. At that time, mothers were enthralled by popular, child star, Shirley Temple, and wanted their daughter to also have curls.

I’m satisfied with my white hair and don’t desire any other color. When I was in my thirties, I experimented with lightning my dishwater blonde hair. It didn’t take long for me to see that I had very, dark roots. That ended my life as a blonde. Besides, I wasn’t having more fun as the saying promised.

Do you have a favorite hairstylist?

Elinor Harrison, who worked fifteen years as a professional dancer and singer, is a dance choreographer and a movement scientist at Washington University in St. Louis plus a lecturer in the Performing Arts Department. For the past decade, she has been developing therapeutic techniques involving singing and dancing to help people with neurological disorders.

She recommends that everybody sing. Not only is singing a deeply ingrained human cultural activity, research increasingly shows how good it is for us. Before people played music, they likely sang. Singing and chanting can have profound benefits to physical, mental and social health, with both immediate and long term effects.

Physically, the act of producing sound can strengthen the lungs and diaphragm plus increase the amount of oxygen in the blood. Singing can also lower heart rate and blood pressure, reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases. It also improves mood and reduces stress.

Vocalizing can even improve you immune system, as active music participation can increase levels of immunoglobin A, one of the key antibodies to stave off illness.

We teach children nursery rhymes with gestures; we spontaneously nod our heads to a favorite song; we sway to the beat while singing at a baseball game.

Recently, I was watching TV showing excerpts from Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. Many of the young women in the audiences were singing along with her.

Group singing provides a mood boost, improves overall well-being and may promote feeling of social connection and bonding. When I was in high school, I was a part of the Mixed Chorus, the Girls Chorus and a small ensemble. One of the advantages of attending a small high school is a person doesn’t have to be good to participate in extra-curricular activities.

Humans are, in effect hardwired to sing and dance, and we likely evolved to do so. Matching footfalls to one’s own singing is an effective tool for improving walking. Seemingly, active vocalization requires a level of engagement, attention and effort that can translate into improved motor patterns. It works even when you sing in your head.

Do you sing in the shower or while doing household chores?

Arthritis is the swelling and tenderness of one or more joints. Its main symptoms are pain and stiffness, which typically worsens with age. According to the National Health Interview Survey, nearly half of U.S. adults aged 65 and older, which includes 25.7 million people, have doctor diagnosed arthritis with more women than men suffering from the disease. Some people say their malady is worse during humid or cold weather.

The most common types are osteoarthritis, which causes cartilage, the hard, slippery tissue that covers the ends of bones where they form a joint, to break down and rheumatoid arthritis when a person’s immune system attacks the lining of joints.

Uric acid crystals, which form when there’s too much uric acid in a person’s blood, can cause gout, most often in the big toe. Infections or underlying disease, such as psoriasis or lupus, can cause other types of arthritis.

Risk factors include tobacco use, family history, other health conditions such as obesity and lack of physical activity. Yet, athletes, especially those who play contact sports, and people who have physically demanding jobs or do work that puts a lot of stress on joints, are susceptible.

In the book, “The Complete Dinosaur,” Bruce M. Rothschild, Professor of Medicine at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine in Youngstown, Ohio, states rheumatoid arthritis can be traced back to a small portion of dinosaurs and prehistoric man.

Reference to arthritis is found in texts at least as far back as 4500 B.C. A text dated 123 A.D. first describes symptoms that appear similar to RA.

In 1859, British rheumatologist, Dr. Alfred Baring Garrod, gave the disease its current name.

Although, the ailment has been known for centuries, there is no cure. Treatment usually consists of over-the-counter anti-inflammatories and therapy to stay strong, active and confident throughout your daily routine. If a person has severe arthritis, surgery may be needed.

Do you cope with arthritis?

I have joined the younger generations in texting with my smartphone. To me, there are times it offers more advantages over calls. When I have just a quick question such as the other day when I asked our daughter, Lisa, “Do you freeze Black Bean Soup?” I’d gotten the recipe from her and it made a lot. Her quick answer was, “Yes.” A short answer to a text can be done nearly effortlessly.

A phone call disrupts what a person is doing and encourages small talk about such mundane subjects as the weather.

Texts leave a printed record. If a conversation slips my mind and I ask someone, “When are we meeting for lunch?” Their response leaves a note of the date, time and place to transfer to my calendar.

I can send a message to our two children, Lisa and Kurt, at the same time. When I had to use the wall phone to pass on information to them, I might tell one twice and the other not at all.

There is privacy in texting. A message can be sent from a public place such as a hospital waiting room. To make a phone call, a secluded area must be found. Others don’t want to be disturbed by someone’s conversation and I don’t want to share my information with strangers.

I’ve never been a big, phone talker. I have to plan the things I’m going to say before I make a call. While I was forming my habits growing up, we were on a party line, which we shared with several neighbors. Although some women chatted on it, my mother never did and she urged me to keep my calls short. There was also no privacy. We never spoke about anything we didn’t want known throughout the community in case someone was listening to our conversation. “Rubbering” to neighbors’ talk was a pastime for country people.

My phone makes a distinctive sound when I receive a text. If I’m too busy to check it at the time, it’s waiting when I get to it.

Much of my typing a message can be automatic. When I start a word, several alternatives usually appear on the dial. All I have to do is touch the correct one.

Do you use a smartphone and text?

Tonight, people around the world will be celebrating the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026. For a few days, I’ll have to remind myself to write the new year each time I jot down the date.

While I was growing up, my parents celebrated by attending a dance and I, an only child, had to tag along. One year when I was in grade school, I remember their friends, Myron and Ruth, picking us up when the thermometer read 20 below. At least, we got into a warm car. I made a mental note to remember that night so when I grew to dating age, my parents could never convince me it was too cold to go out.

When Ken and I were young marrieds, there was a year when it was 20 below but our friends, Billy and Mickey, accompanied us to a Loves Park nightclub for dinner and an evening of entertainment. I still remembered that long ago, frigid night going out with my parents.

Our most memorable celebration was 1954 – 55, when we were teenagers. Ken had joined the U.S. Navy and was home on leave for the holidays. To begin the evening, his long-time pal, Wayne, driving his Ford, picked up his girlfriend, Gloria, plus Ken and me to attend the movie, “White Christmas,” at the Coronado theater in Rockford. After that, we stopped in Durand at the dance in the Grange Hall to join the crowd welcoming the new year with paper hats, cardboard horns and tin noisemakers. That event ended at 3 a.m. By then we were hungry and drove south to the mile-corner where The Hilltop remained open to serve revelers. After we ate cheeseburgers, I arrived home at 4 a.m. and kissed Ken good-bye. In a few hours, he would fly away–I didn’t know how long before I would see him again.

When I got out of bed at noon on New Year’s Day, I was in the doghouse with my mother for getting home so late. I didn’t care–it had been worth it to spend the time with Ken.

We no longer go out to celebrate New Year’s Eve. It’s an effort to stay up and watch TV until the ball drops in New York’s Times Square and our clock reads 11 p.m.

Do you celebrate New Year’s Eve?

Tonight, most Christian churches will be conducting services recognizing Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. The congregations will sing the traditional carols such as “Silent Night,” “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” and “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.”

It’s a story that endures through the centuries. Here in Durand, St. Mary’s parish youth presented the Live Nativity Sunday. December 7, at 1 p.m. in the courtyard at Medina.

When our three kids were Sunday school age, the children re-enacted the manger scene in a program in front of the congregation. Bathrobes and towels garbed the boys. The girl who played Mary wore a long dress.

Today, Christian churches don’t have the large membership that made them thrive during the sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties. At that time, babies were baptized, older children attended Sunday school and vacation Bible school while teens were accorded the rite of confirmation, making them members. When the young people married, they walked down the aisle to the altar where the minister read the traditional vows. The new families continued the traditions as grandparents looked on. Most congregations have dwindled and fallen on hard times, struggling to continue.

Each year, I set up my plaster of Paris nativity set, that my Aunt Frannie painted before I was married. It’s battered and chipped but I cherish it. I constructed a stable using the kids’ Lincoln Logs and added a cardboard roof cut from a shoe box and covered with brown paper and straw from Dad’s farm. The figures depict Jesus in the manger with Mary and Joseph being visited by an angel. They are also joined by a shepherd with his sheep and a man with a camel. The Three Wise Men from the East are also included.

Do you honor Jesus’ birth?

Holiday decorations usually start with a fir tree, a tradition which began in Central Europe during the 16th century. Protestant, Christian reformer, Martin Luther, is said to have first added lighted candles to an evergreen tree in his Germany home.

One of our first trees when we had three little children was a “cut your own.” Grandparents accompanied us to the farm. The proprietor provided the saw and Ken cut down a five-foot-tall evergreen. Our ceilings were only seven-foot, so a taller tree wouldn’t fit.

For several years, getting our tree was an event. On a Sunday afternoon in December, we met with Jon and Susan and their children plus Wayne and Gloria with their family and went to Williams Tree Farm on Yale Bridge Road. After we’d each selected a pine and husbands had used ropes to tie them to individual car roofs, we all went to Jon and Susan’s home for a chili supper. This continued for only a short time before moves ended the tradition.

For years, our family continued to make an annual trip to the same farm. A few of the ornaments we use date back to my childhood. When I took over making the family Christmas Eve supper, my folks quit having a tree and passed their decorations to us.

Our tree has always been set up in front of a window so the lights could be seen by passers-by. Neither my folks nor Ken and I have done exterior decorating. While I was growing up and continuing with our children, we went for an evening ride to see the outdoor decorations in nearby towns. Some communities sponsor contests among residents who light-up outside.

Although, tree farms have proliferated, we converted to an artificial tree a few years ago. Ken got tired of cleaning up the dry needles when Christmas was over and he took down the tree.

How do you decorate for Christmas?

Many memories are evoked when I see a Santa Claus. There were the days when I was little and believed in the jolly, old elf. On Christmas Eve, I kept Dad company in the barn while he did the evening milking so Santa could come–I was one of his first stops. Mom never saw the man in the red suit enter our living room through the front door and leave my gifts under the tree. She was busy in the kitchen preparing supper for my aunt, uncle and cousins who would join us at 7 p.m. for the meal and gift exchange.

I never wrote a letter to Santa but my parents always took me to a department store so I could tell him what I wanted. Of course, I mentioned my desires many times at home so they had no doubt what I hoped to find under the tree.

I was a second-grader but no longer believed in Santa when Dad was drafted to play the part. Our teacher was boarding with us because we lived next door to the one-room building making it an easy walk to work for the gray-haired lady. For our school Christmas party, her brother planned to don the costume, but he was sick at the last minute. When she approached Dad to take his place, my father couldn’t turn her down, much as he wanted to. When he entered the classroom with a, “Ho! Ho! Ho!” a preschooler was scared and dove under the sandbox, which stood on tall legs. Even the offering of a gift didn’t lure him from his sanctuary.

There were the years, our three children believed in Santa. Ken spent many late Christmas Eves opening the boxes that were emblazoned “some assembly required.” The kids were always up early the next morning to find their gifts waiting under the tree.

One year, we were hosting the Christmas Day gathering for Ken’s sister, brother and their families when Santa visited our house. I can still see the looks of wonder on the faces of our grandnieces and nephews when the fat man with the white beard walked in our front door.

With no small children in our family now, we have no visitor on Christmas Eve except in memory.

Did you believe in Santa when you were little?

One of those signs Christmas is coming is Seals arriving in the mail asking for donations. For as long as I can remember, they have been a part of the holiday. The design, different each year, included the red, double-barred Cross of Lorraine. I knew the money donated was to fight tuberculosis. The lung disease was the leading cause of death in the United States during the early 20th century. At that time, physicians were just experiencing their first signs of success treating TB in special hospitals called sanitoriums. Years of rest and fresh air were the main stays of the cure. In 1907, a tiny sanitorium in Delaware had fallen on hard times and would have to close if $300 wasn’t raised to save it. Emily Bissell, a volunteer and a veteran fund raiser, came up with a plan that had worked in Denmark. She designed and printed a special holiday seal and sold them in post offices for a penny each. By the end of her holiday campaign, which was endorsed by President Theodore Roosevelt, ten times the goal was raised and Christmas Seals were born.

In January of 1957, when I was nineteen, I learned about TB from the inside of the Rockford Municipal Sanitorium. After a nagging cough that defied doctor’s treatment for three months was finally diagnosed as the disease, I was admitted to the well-run institution. In 1946, streptomycin had become the accepted treatment. After five months of residence in the “San” and receiving painful shots in the butt twice a week (I was certain the needles the nurses used were rejects from WWII), I was sent home instead of spending years undergoing the rest cure. The convalescence cost nothing.

I’m thankful for the people who funded that non-profit in the past. It can be compared to planting a tree knowing that you won’t be around to enjoy its shade.

In 1971, The College of Medicine Rockford a regional campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago, was founded. TB had ended its reign as a threat to Americans and sanitoriums were closed. The three-story brick building on Parkview Avenue was utilize to train doctors. One of the physicians I’ve seen recently, said he took his schooling there.

Keeping up with the times, the organization that sponsors the seals has revised its name to the American Lung Association and fights various breathing diseases.

This time of year, we are asked to contribute for everything from children with birth defects to elephants threatened with extinction. Do you include a worthy cause in your Christmas gifts?