ONCE UPON A ZOOLATRY ~ 2023 Year In Review

Here at home, in our nation, and worldwide it was not the best year.

Yet as we spent our days at Zoolatry, with human friends and their many wonderful and beautiful

pets we all came together in friendship to share that which is good, heart warming and full of joy.

Yes, we also shared sadness and losses and reached out to one another with comfort in those times,

as we will do again.  Let us all continue, together, on this path into the New Year.

A journey together of sharing and caring.  A journey of kindness, of decency and dignity toward

one another, uplifting always.  It is the only way to move forward.

And let us always remember the ones who touched our hearts.

Thank you for being part of Zoolatry, Ann & June.

December 31, 2023

 

ONCE UPON A YEAR ~

Reflections ~ in pictures, as Zoolatry is always more about images than words ~ a look back through the year about to end.  Forgive me while I reflect through many years that have ended, it is something I always seem to do.  Retired now, many years and sadly a widow.  Much lost, gone ~ much gained, easy to see now, though not at the time of happening.  And it was such a long time ago I also said good-bye to my heart cat Maggy, and silly little Zoey (Poppy Vic's Number One). It seems only yesterday they all left, each to their own place ~ apart from me ~ yet they thrive in their new homes, and are often thought of, and appear, here ~ their first home.  

Apart from me.  Is it only in the movies that you hear an actor say, "I cannot see him anymore," the face of the love lost, now fading into memory.  I am blessed, as Poppy Vic and my kitty girls have never faded from my sight.  All sit on my shoulder, each walks beside me, with every coming day. 

And this place is my journal, my diary ... where I can visit, refreshing memories as my own mind muddies with age.  This has become a place of friendship, warm words, caring thoughts, a simple "hello", left by those I have not met, will never meet but who have become an important part of my life ... every  day.   

To 2018 I say not just goodbye, but good riddance, glad you're gone, don't need you, don't want you around.  I am a political animal, and living where I do, local news is national news is international news, and it is my addiction.  Hooked on it.  News was dinner table talk in rural Indiana, growing up in the 1950s.  I blame my parents for my addiction ... my daily papers of choice, the Washington Post and the New York Times.  Read the old fashioned way, on paper, coffee cup to the side.  No online news here, tech is leaving me behind.  I am tired of the real world of 2018.
Will 2019 be different, can it be?  In my alternate world of Zoolatry, it will be a wonderful, amazing and fullsome year.  I'd rather live here in the Zoolatry world.   Someone once reminded me, January ... Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and endings, and the god of gateways and doors.  So we begin, anew.  Hoping much, praying more.  Opening a door each day, the door perhaps to Fibber McGee's closet not knowing what will fall out from an avalanche of stuff: good, bad, happy, sad, and in-between stuff.  Come along for the ride. 

YEAR IN REVIEW, September to December 2017

YEAR IN REVIEW, May to August 2017

It is said that the older one gets, the faster time goes and I have learned how true that is.  During 2017, we celebrated ten years of blogging!  Zoolatry is somewhat of a "life's journal" for me ... pets, people, places ... (a bit of politics, though I try not to impose that!) ... all the things that pass through my life, the little things of no importance to any but me ... and other things I wish to share.  Things I can post here and know I'll be able to look back at, an album of memories.  This "year in review" completes another album, closing the book on some very interesting times ...

YEAR IN REVIEW, January to April 2017

Over the next few days ~ our "year in review" ~ with thanks to so many for the good times shared

with you, our friends throughout the world of pet blogging ~ a very special place.

Our monthly blog headers and a few favorite posts from the months of

January through April 2017 posted today.

 With thanks to Brian for hosting the Thankful Thursday Blog Hop!