I’m going to beg your forgiveness on this New Year’s Day Monday, for this is a redux of a post I wrote on the Monday just before the calendar changed to 2021!  I’ve made a few updates and added some cartoons,  and obviously we are no longer in lockdown due to the pandemic as we were in December 2020, but otherwise … well, there’s a saying that “the more things change, the more they stay the same”, and we’re pretty much still the same as we were three years ago!  Apologies for a redux of a Jolly Monday post, but I am completely exhausted and brain-dead from all this holiday stuff and simply cannot do any more tonight!

So, did you all have a nice holiday?  I know many of you, especially in the UK where very strict lockdown regulations are in place, missed spending the holiday with your families or friends, but hopefully by next holiday season things will be vastly improved.

So, if it’s Monday it must be time for some humour to start the week out, right?  Grab a snack – Joyful wouldn’t let me in the kitchen, so I have no idea what she’s cooked up this morning – and we’ll go in search of a few chuckles.

The secret to a longer life?  Math!

I found this both interesting and the last bit highly humorous.

The world’s oldest person, Kane Tanaka, turns 118 on Saturday.  She was born in 1903, and lives in a nursing home in Japan, where she wakes up at 6 a.m and enjoys playing board games. Her secrets to longevity: eating good food and practicing math.

Practicing math???  Whoa … I better stop using the calculator on my phone to add 2+2 and start using my noggin a bit more, yes?

Update:  Ms. Tanaka died in April 2022 at the age of 119 years, 107 days.  There is a Wikipedia page about her, if you’d like to check it out.

Uh-oh Santa … should’a stuck with the reindeer!

An unidentified Northern California man thought it would be cool to dress as Santa Claus and deliver candy canes to children in his community … via a motorized parachute.  Neighbors say he flies around the neighborhood often in his vehicle, but this time there was a bit of a hitch … ol’ Santa got entangled in a set of electrical wires!

He flew into a maze of power lines and wound up suspended in them, according to a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman.

The man, who wasn’t identified, was not injured. Video from the rescue shows the red-white-and-blue aircraft dangling overhead as Santa sat fastened to the pilot seat. Neighbors watched from the ground as crews worked.

Power was shut off during the rescue to about 200 customers in the Rio Linda area, according to Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District spokesman Chris Vestal.

“It’s unfortunate, but we all need to remember that there’s still a lot of good out in the world, there are people doing good things and to look at the brightness of the holiday season.”

“W/o a scratch & full of good cheer we made sure Old St. Nick will use his reindeer when he sees you later this year,” the fire department said in a tweet after the incident.

So, how about some New Year’s themed ‘toons?

And here are a few new ones I added this year …

And, I have a few cute pictures to share with you …

The highlight of my life the past month or so has been a pair of grey squirrels that appear every morning outside my ‘office’ (kitchen table where I write this blog) window.  After a couple of days watching their antics, I started putting a handful of unsalted, unshelled peanuts out every morning for them, which they take great joy in.  Then, wanting to give them a more nutritious diet, I did some research and ordered a bag of “Critter Crunch” from the Audubon Society, which they also enjoy, but they still prefer the peanuts.  They hop all around the patio, jump from the wrought iron rocking chair to the top of the grill, to the handlebars of Miss Goose’s bicycle!  They are beginning to trust me a bit more, I think, and I smile every time I see them through my ‘window on the world’.  Their latest antic is teasing one of our cats, Pandi.  If she is sitting in the windowsill, they jump up on the outside window ledge and … I swear I think they laugh at her!  Her tail twitches, then quivers, she bats at the window, and the squirrels just sit there.  It is, truly, the highlight of my day.  So, I went in search of a cute squirrel video for this week’s Jolly Monday …

Update:  The video I originally used in 2020 is no longer available, so I replaced it with this one …

Well, my friends, it’s that time … time for us all to be about our appointed chores.  But take heart … it’s a short week!  Meanwhile, as you go about your week, please take time to lend a helping hand wherever you can, and share those gorgeous smiles with people who look like they need one.  Have a safe and happy week.  Love ‘n hugs from Filosofa, Jolly and Joyful!

Can’t forget our bacon-lover fwiends!!!

Happy Monday morn, my friends!  Come on in out of the cold … just toss your coats over there … Jolly is the coat keeper for the day!  This is always a weird week, I think.  Christmas is over, all except the cleaning up, putting away, etc., and it’s a short week, with New Year’s Eve on Thursday.  When I laboured outside the home, I always hated this week … trying to catch up from the previous week, but not really being able to because most people took a vacation week, and I couldn’t get the answers I needed.  I’m very much a creature of routine, and when my routine is wrecked two weeks in a row, I tend to get rather dark ‘n grumpy.  This year, however, I’m trying to be laid back … with everything else happening in the world, the small stuff really just doesn’t much matter.

So, did you all have a nice holiday?  I know many of you, especially in the UK where very strict lockdown regulations are in place, missed spending the holiday with your families or friends, but hopefully by next holiday season things will be vastly improved.

So, if it’s Monday it must be time for some humour to start the week out, right?  Grab a snack – Joyful wouldn’t let me in the kitchen, so I have no idea what she’s cooked up this morning – and we’ll go in search of a few chuckles.

The secret to a longer life?  Math!

I found this both interesting and the last bit highly humorous.

The world’s oldest person, Kane Tanaka, turns 118 on Saturday.  She was born in 1903, and lives in a nursing home in Japan, where she wakes up at 6 a.m and enjoys playing board games. Her secrets to longevity: eating good food and practicing math.

Practicing math???  Whoa … I better stop using the calculator on my phone to add 2+2 and start using my noggin a bit more, yes?

Uh-oh Santa … should’a stuck with the reindeer!

An unidentified Northern California man thought it would be cool to dress as Santa Claus and deliver candy canes to children in his community … via a motorized parachute.  Neighbors say he flies around the neighborhood often in his vehicle, but this time there was a bit of a hitch … ol’ Santa got entangled in a set of electrical wires!

He flew into a maze of power lines and wound up suspended in them, according to a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman.

The man, who wasn’t identified, was not injured. Video from the rescue shows the red-white-and-blue aircraft dangling overhead as Santa sat fastened to the pilot seat. Neighbors watched from the ground as crews worked.

Power was shut off during the rescue to about 200 customers in the Rio Linda area, according to Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District spokesman Chris Vestal.

“It’s unfortunate, but we all need to remember that there’s still a lot of good out in the world, there are people doing good things and to look at the brightness of the holiday season.”

“W/o a scratch & full of good cheer we made sure Old St. Nick will use his reindeer when he sees you later this year,” the fire department said in a tweet after the incident.

So, how about some New Year’s themed ‘toons?

And, I have a few cute pictures to share with you …

The highlight of my life the past month or so has been a pair of grey squirrels that appear every morning outside my ‘office’ (kitchen table where I write this blog) window.  After a couple of days watching their antics, I started putting a handful of unsalted, unshelled peanuts out every morning for them, which they take great joy in.  Then, wanting to give them a more nutritious diet, I did some research and ordered a bag of “Critter Crunch” from the Audubon Society, which they also enjoy, but they still prefer the peanuts.  They hop all around the patio, jump from the wrought iron rocking chair to the top of the grill, to the handlebars of Miss Goose’s bicycle!  They are beginning to trust me a bit more, I think, and I smile every time I see them through my ‘window on the world’.  Their latest antic is teasing one of our cats, Pandi.  If she is sitting in the windowsill, they jump up on the outside window ledge and … I swear I think they laugh at her!  Her tail twitches, then quivers, she bats at the window, and the squirrels just sit there.  It is, truly, the highlight of my day.  So, I went in search of a cute squirrel video for this week’s Jolly Monday …

Well, my friends, it’s that time … time for us all to be about our appointed chores.  But take heart … it’s a short week!  Meanwhile, as you go about your week, please take time to lend a helping hand wherever you can, and share those gorgeous smiles with people who look like they need one.  Have a safe and happy week.  Love ‘n hugs from Filosofa, Jolly and Joyful!

Can’t forget our bacon-lover fwiends!!!