Wednesday, December 31, 2025

The Year's End by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 


Today is the last day of 2025, and what do I have to show for it?

Not much.

I really haven’t been very productive this past year. Thanks to wrenching my back and being on a muscle relaxant, I didn’t even finish NaNo this year. And about all I’ve accomplished the last couple of weeks is watching a ton of online content.

Though I have come across a few interesting videos and ads.

One I saw just cracked me up. I mean, I literally laughed long and hard!

It turned out to be an online ad for a Harry Potter wand, but it started with a quote showing across the screen, which said, “Babe, stop buying toys, you’re 30!”

Okay, that still makes me laugh. Here’s this poor guy complaining about his woman buying Harry Potter merchandise at 30 years old, and here I am at 63, and I can see both Harry Potter merchandise and Barbie merchandise within my current line of sight, and I purchased the Barbie merchandise last month!

I kind of wonder what those ad executives would think about someone my age still buying toys for myself.

Then, again, let’s face it, despite a person’s age, there is always going to be something on which they will splurge.

When my husband was alive, he saved his spending money to buy muzzleloaders, buckskin, and all the various historically accurate accoutrements of his hobby. I’m still alive, and I spend my discretionary funds on books, Barbies, craft supplies, Nativities, owls, Eagles, and occasionally Harry Potter merc.

I’m sure other adults have other things they like to splurge on. Everyone should have at least one hobby, no matter what their age.

And, yes, I know, I have several. But it still boils down to the guy in that ad complaining about his lady love buying toys for herself at the ripe old age of 30, and I’m over here at 63 still buying myself toys. I might also point out that I purchased my first toy with my own money when I was around 12 years old. I still have the toy, too. He’s my oldest Ken doll, part of the original Malibu Barbie series, which came out around that time.

Which sort of brings up another thing I saw online this past week. Someone asked their audience what the oldest thing in their house was. I sort of wish that it were Ken, but alas, the oldest thing in my house is the desk I have in the corner, which was my grandfather’s many eons ago. It is, in fact, older than I am.

Unless one of my various Nativities, which were mostly gifts or acquired from thrift stores, is an antique (and I sincerely doubt that), that old desk is the oldest thing I own, because I am fairly sure it’s the only thing here that predates my birth.

I do have books which were originally published before I was born, but I do not have any first editions of said books; none of my vast collection of books would qualify as the oldest.

Though speaking of books, I also recently saw a post stating something about if the one book physically closest to you was the only book you could read for the rest of your life, what would it be?

I laughed at that one, too, because immediately to my left was volume 1 of a four-book series of which I now have all four books, and the same distance away on my right was my Kindle Fire.

My reader not only has a vast library of books on it, but it also has a separate app produced by my church, which is our entire Gospel Library. My Kindle Fire alone could keep me occupied for quite a while.

The final interesting post I saw this last week was one where a guy asked, “What is one thing no one can understand, unless they’ve lived it?”

My response was, “Being identical twins.”

I can certainly provide examples of how it is different because I have lived it, but telling you everything different still wouldn’t make you understand.

Actually, I’m talking about mirror twins more than identical because we’ve known twins who looked fairly identical to me, but well, they had never said the exact same thing at the exact time with the exact same tonal inflection, just one at a different octave than the other.

We’ve known lots of twins throughout our lives, and I’ve never known another set who could simply glance at each other and know what the other was thinking.

I could keep going, but I’ve mentioned all these odd things we can do in earlier posts.

Happy writing, everyone, and have a happy and productive new year!

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