Happy New Year! 2014 is here.

I can't believe it.  I am not ready for this.  I need another couple of months in 2013 to do the things I wanted to do that year, and now it is 2014.  As usual it will take me a few months to start to write the right year on the checks when I pay bills, but otherwise, things are just the same :) 

I like that it snowed both on Christmas Eve and New Years Eve with big lovely thumbnail-sized snowflakes even if they don't last that long.  This morning we woke up to severe cold and it is supposed to get down to 0 degrees Fahrenheit tonight (that is -20 C for those that use the-rest-of-the-world temperature system :).   The cats seem OK outside, and they are getting pampered with hot water bottles, hot drinking water and plenty of treats and insulating blankets.  They don't care a bit about dates, only about morsels of 'Tempting Tuna Flavor' treats.

So, 2013.  It was a year without giant weather events and storms.  Thanks!  I feel we needed that after 2012 which was horrible weatherwise.  Superstorm Sandy, the snowstorm in October one week after Sandy, the spring rainstorm that felled lots of conifers, etc.  So 2013 was calmer, a bit hot of course in these days of global warming.  Lots of canned tomatoes and homemade hot sauce ('Molten Lava' was one of them), two wonderful and successful kids in college, I learned how to use natural dyes for dyeing silk, wool, and cotton, and insect collecting in cold November with my Dad and sister were some of the highlights. And hundreds of great dinners with fantastic homemade and local food, thanks PP!  So, 2013 was a good year.  On to 2014 now...

But, it is still The Year of the Snake in the Chinese Calendar, and their New Year happens in a few weeks. Here is a US stamp showcasing the Chinese new Year celebrations.  Happy New 2014!

Time passing

Welcome to winter and the change of the clocks!  It happened today here in the US (Swedes are ahead of us as usual, they changed their clocks a while ago).  Back to normal Eastern Standard Time for us now, no more Daylight Savings time (which is called Summer Time, 'sommartid', in Swedish).

The amazing hybrid solar eclipse (Nov 3, 2014) we had planned to watch this morning was hidden by a large could bank.  Oh well.  Somewhere behind those clouds were a partially visible sun.  We will have to wait to 2014 for another solar eclipse. There is some photos and info here of this rare event.

And, sad memories and news - it is 50 years since developers in New York City crushed the old, beautiful Penn Station and built a mega-ugly box on top of it.  Penn Station now are horrible cramped tunnels below Madison Square Garden.  Look at the photos of what once was here... At least Grand Central Terminal is still standing in New York, and Penn Stations are left in Baltimore and Philadelphia.  If you wonder about the names - Penn Station comes from the old Pennsylvania Railroad, and Grand Central was the railroad station for the rival New York Central Railroad.  Union Station in Washington, DC, had several railroads, that is why it was called 'Union'.  (PP can correct me if I am wrong :)

Back again! Periodical cicadas in NJ

In 2004, during our wedding here in New Jersey, was one of the outbursts of the periodical cicadas, which has a 17-year life cycle. They were everywhere!  They were part of the "Great Eastern Brood", the largest of the populations.

This year another brood of these noisy insects are back, and we have just started to hear a few in the forests this passed week.  It doesn't seem to matter if it is daytime, dusk, dawn, or night - they go on making noise on and off regardless of light or not.  They sound like this. This is called the 'East Coast Brood', and these insects have been living underground on tree roots since 1996. Amazing!

 

 They are easy to tell apart from the regular cicadas because they are black with red eyes, the regular cicadas here are green, and the periodical cicadas hatch earlier in the season. 

Today is the shortest day of the year....

... YES!  That is a good thing.  Of course, in the southern hemisphere it is the longest day of their summer.  Honestly, I don't want spring and summer yet.  I want winter with snow.  We had our crazy October snowstorm, and since then, nothing... not a white flake.  It rained all day yesterday, and somehow the Christmas feeling is not really there... yet.

Paper or plastic....

This is one of the reasons why I will stick to Filofax paper calendar for all my scheduling for many years more to come:

"Mr. George uses a datebook that fits in his back pocket. “People make comments about it,” he said. “They show me their little technology. But then they sit there tapping on their device, and by the time they’ve gone through all the log-ins and downloading, I’ve already flipped the page.” (source)

Read the NY Times article if you like, it is interesting: Paper Calendar? It’s 2011. I love the simplicity and that my Filofax always work.  I pen something in there and can look it up in a second. And it is private.  And I have had my filofax cover for years and year, and had to rehabilitate it a bit last year with black sharpie pen (it was black leather). Now it looks nearly new again. I also feel smart having a filofax and not having to look stupid hacking and tapping away on a tiny screen on some little toyshaped Donkey-kong like smartphone thingie. To all of you that love your iphones and such - great for you, but I am doing perfectly fine with my way of doing things. Imagine, I never need a charging, never a syncing, never a firmware update, never an internet connection.  I can sit in a cave in Ulan-Bator and look at my calendar :)

Things we ought to do:

Motivational Poster, originally uploaded by Forrest Fossil.

Make Time for Things You Love.

Easier said than done. This great photo by Forrest Fossil on Flickr was made with a flashlight, and isn't it great? It probably took a longer exposure time than normal to spell out those words in the dark. Make time... as if you could make time, but you can rearrange time and thereby make time...

Time change

We got daylight savings time here in the US yesterday, but that is not the only time that has changed during last week.  During the horrific earthquake in Japan, which led to the equally horrific tsunami, this also happened:

"NASA scientists calculated that the redistribution of mass by the earthquake might have shortened the day by a couple of millionths of a second and tilted the Earth’s axis slightly." (link to NY Times story)

Nature is powerful, indeed.   

Fading light in Scandinavia

We are losing daylight quickly now, and today is the first day with "wintertime". The sun is fading so the clock is turned back to it´s real position for half a year. Now the sun is passing south every noon, not one o´clock.

But light is fading, as you can see in this scheme over sunrise and sunset in Södertälje the coming week. Minus 30 min. But it´s only two months til it turns and daylight becomes longer again.

No rock in the world...

 

...ever grows larger. If you are a rock, you just shrink and shrink until you are sand. Unless you become part of conglomerate of course. Then it just takes you a little longer to become sand, eventually. But when you are sand, then you can become sandstone, and later sandstone rocks. Round and round they go, the rocks.

 

(Photo montage by Robyn Jay on Flickr, link here)

Mail from friends

I have noticed that most mail today is bills and advertising. I miss the time when I had long nice handwritten letters to come home to after school/work. I know, the internet is fast and so, but I sometimes feel it´s to fast. Maybe the same way PP feel about fast travel? Rather train than plane, an a nice letter in my new mailbox from time to time....

To illustrate this I´ve chosen two matchbox labels.