Beginning today and hopefully continuing throughout the year, I will be curating music playlists. I enjoyed doing the Supernatural one so much last year that I thought it would make an exciting new series.
This month’s curated list is based on President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
It includes artists, songs, and themes from the 2021 Inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Enjoy!
One of my favorite tea brands and companies is Adagio Teas. They have all the regular teas that you love plus accessories and gifts, but they have a special section on fandom teas.
I started my collection with gifts from friends, and not every tea has agreed with my palate, but they’ve opened me up to try new things.
I have two favorites in particular – The Walking Dead Daryl and Supernatural Survival Tea. I tried the sample tins, and reordered the bulk bags.
There is also an option to mix and create your own blend, which I have yet to try; it is definitely on my to-do list.
In recent days, I’ve been enjoying a morning cup of tea, and I hope to continue with my fandom favorites.
Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
– – Melody Beattie
What can we look forward to in this new year?
Beginning tomorrow, everything.
I’m optimistic. A new President and Vice President will be sworn in at noon tomorrow, and thus begins 100 days.
100 Days of mask wearing.
100 Days of vaccinations.
100 Days of returning to ourselves and becoming better.
A new year to set goals, to take chances, to create.
I’m looking forward.
Instead of publishing Election Connection today, I will publish the last one (unless times require updates) next week with ways we can continue to be civic minded every day, not only every four years. Persist, Stand up, Speak out, Rise up. Together, we can make things better.
I have a few go-to teas that I drink regularly or carry with me to conferences, vacations, and other times tea is needed, and honestly when isnt’t it?
They do change over time, so lately my go-to teas are Twinings English Breakfast Tea and Prince of Wales tea, and PG Tips, all with milk and just a little bit of sugar.
Today was a little different, though. I had an appointment at the mechanic’s. Instead of bringing my own tea, I knew that they’d have tea available, and I was very excited by my choice:
Chai Latte.
At home we don’t have a Keurig, so when I’m here I need to re-learn how to make the tea, but it’s not that difficult.
I’m enjoyng my second cup.
January begins our year, and what better way to begin this already tumultuous year with a nice hot cup of tea in this annual celebration of Tea!
I know that people often talk about the corruption of politicians and sometimes that can be an oversimplified catch-all and generalization and stereotype, but even I was surprised at the level of corruption of the Trump Administration, and I believe that the blatant corruption and lack of empathy towards the American people led to a much wider array of abuses.
Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are two of the most unethical and shady pols I have come across. To the point, that in the last debate Perdue had with challenger Jon Ossoff, he had no response to Ossoff calling him a crook right to his face.
He didn’t defend, he didn’t excuse, he stood silently by as if accepting the description. He has refused to debate in subsequent opportunities.
Loeffler debated her challenger Reverend Raphael Warnock, but instead of laying out her policy priorities and her ideals, she persisted in name-calling using “radical liberal Raphael Warnock” as if that false characterization was all that mattered, and perhaps to the GOP it is.
To Georgia voters, though, I hope that they can see through the dishonest shenanigans of both incumbents who have done nothing for their constituents and only worked to line their own pockets.
Both have sat in on classified briefings earlier in the year about the oncoming Covid pandemic, and instead of taking care of Georgians, they made sure their stock portfolios were in order, trading stocks they felt would fall when the pandemic reached the United States and become common knowledge, and buying stocks in the health care field that would surely grow as Americans became sicker and sicker.
In any other administration, there would be an ethics investigation into both of them.
We currently stand at just under 300,000 dead from the virus known as covid-19. They haven’t pressured Mitch McConnell to bring covid relief to the Senate floor, and have stood in line behind him as he ignores the ravages of the pandemic.
As long as they’re getting paid, I suppose.
Some links for you to see for yourselves what they’ve been doing for most of 2020:
What We Know About David Perdue’s Stock Trades
David Perdue profited from a Navy contractor’s stock while overseeing the Naval Fleet
Perdue and Loeffler’s Well-timed Stock Trades Give Georgia Democrats an Opening
Georgia Senator David Perdue privately pushed for a tax break for rich Sports Teamowners
After Insider Trading Probe, Loeffler Offers Donors Access In ‘Co-Investor Program’
9 Questions about the Georgia Senate Runoffs You Were Too Embarrassed to Ask
Loeffler among Senators whose stock trading during coronavirus raises questions
Please give your support to Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock; vote for BOTH of them and bring integrity and purpose to the Senate in representing the people of Georgia.
Follow these accounts on Twitter and visit their websites to see what you can do to ensure a Democratic win in the Georgia Runoff!
LaTosha Brown, co-founder Black Voters Matter
Reverend Raphael Warnock
Website for Donations
Vote Save America: GA Runoff
Get Mitch Fund for Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock
There are many ways to inspire this month. It starts somewhat in darkness as the nights get longer and the days shorter, but my birthday was last week, so there were birthday candles. Advent began a few days before that and the church has their advent wreath with two of the four candles lit now. In two days is the first night of Chanukah, the Festival of Lights, and it also marks the anniversary of my mother’s death when I will light a Yartzeit candle for her, and then of course, Christmas two weeks after that.
There are many ways to bring light into our lives in this darkest season in what seems to be a very dark year. It may be that the older we get, the more we notice that our childhood heroes keep dying. I remember my mother making comment on that many years ago when she was in her fifties. I am noticing it now, but I don’t know if it’s my age or the year that 2020 has been.
In some ways, the year has stood still, or at least it’s seemed like that with how slowly it’s passing by, and it seems that every week is a new loss: Childhood heroes like Curly Neal of the Harlem Globetrotters, Chuck Yeager, Little Richard, actors that I enjoyed watching on my own and with my mother: Stan Kirsch, Kirk Douglas, Fred Willard, Phyllis George, James Lipton, Orson Bean, and Olivia de Havilland to name but a few.
And those that really hit me hard, whose deaths I still carry with me in some way or form: Jerry Stiller, Grant Imahara, Tomie de Paola, Chadwick Boseman, John Lewis, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and so many others including a dear friend who died just last week.
And yet, we continue on, as we do.
I am attending a three week Advent program on Zoom that includes music, prayer, reflection, journaling, and breakout groups. It is affording me the time, the facilitator calls it the gift of time, the ability to sit still, in quiet, and reflect. Contemplate.
And so I will pass that on to you right now.
Take fifteen minutes. Set a timer if you need to, and just stop. You can come back to this post after the fifteen minutes are finished, but take the time and sit with yourself (and with G-d if you like, but you don’t have to).
– – Fifteen minutes of quiet – –
Did you light a candle? Listen to music? Pray? Think? Draw or color?
This morning, I did all of these things and I was inspired, even just a little, to finish this post.
Some things that inspired me this week:
“Always keep your eyes open. Keep watching. Because whatever you see can inspire you.”
— Grace Coddington
8. Find something that is useful for you.
I don’t know where I’d be without my planner! In fact, this reminds me that I need to get a new one for 2021!
Original Post
7. Find something you can use to give someone a gift.
Amish Friendship Bread Starter. (c)2020
Griffins and Ginger Snaps 