Posted January 19, 2026
 Blog Topic:
WORDS OF THE YEAR FOR 2025
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It's The Journey That Counts!
Life's journey is not to arrive safely at the grave in a well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, at 90 miles an hour with your hair on fire, totally worn out, and shouting, "Wow! What a ride!"
Anna-grams​
● Both Luciano and I have been under the weather with the latest flu virus. Apparently it lasts a long time, but we are getting better.
Anagrams
● Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans... = Neatly weighs up mawkish philosophy about unforseen reality.
~ Tony Crafter (2005)

● The real meaning of life = A fear of meeting. In Hell.
~ Wayne Baisley (2003)

Martin Luther King Day = Thinking "truly a dream"
~ Rick Rothstein (2001)

The late, great Dr. Martin Luther King = Think tall! A dreamer greeting truth.
~ O.V. Michaelsen (1989)

​Famous Winter Quotes
● "Words are the voice of the heart." – Confucius

● "A dictionary is the only place where success comes before work." – Mark Twain

● “Always remember that striving and struggle precede success even in the dictionary.” - Sarah Ban Breathnach

● "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

● "Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind." – Rudyard Kipling

● "A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day." – Emily Dickinson

● "Language is the dress of thought." – Samuel Johnson

● “If you have a big enough dictionary, just about everything is a word.”
– Dave Barry
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​You Had One Job...
This is one of the reasons why words matter -- although one would think manufacturers would be a bit more cautious about packaging.
MY BOOKS
Works By R Ann Siracusa
Tour Director Extraordinaire Series
Humorous Romantic Suspense
Book 1 - All For A Dead Man’s Leg
Book 2 - All For A Fistful Of Ashes
Book 3 - Destruction Of The Great Wall
Book 4 - All For Spilled Blood
Book 5 - All For A Blast of Hot Air
Tour Director Series Short Stories
First Date
Halloween in the Catacombs
Christmas Plans Gone Awry
Elves For Christmas

​Other Books and Short Stories
A Timeless Melody 
The Last Weekend In October
All In the Game
Family Secrets: A Vengeance of Tears
Tiffany
Time in a Bottle

​Amazon Link to R. Ann Siracusa Books
Barnes & Noble Link to R. Ann Siracusa Books


Granny Mythbuster Rides Again
Commonly Believed Myths that Aren’t True
MYTH:   The Pilgrims Did Not Land At Plymouth Rock

TRUTH:  Plymouth Rock was not mentioned by anyone until 121 years after the pilgrims landed, and then by a 94 year-old man. None of the original passengers were alive to confirm or dispute his story.

“The story of the Pilgrims stepping onto Plymouth Rock in 1620 has become an iconic image in American history, but there is no historical evidence to support it. It wasn’t until 1741—121 years later—that Plymouth Rock was first mentioned in writing. That year, 94-year-old Thomas Faunce asserted it was the exact landing spot. By then, not even one Mayflower passenger was alive to confirm/dispute it.” americarewind.com/myths-american-history
e Separatists Did Not Land At Plymouth Rock
Not only that, but they didn’t even land where they intended. They were headed for the Virginia Colony which, at that time extended from Jamestown up to the mouth of the Hudson River. They originally planned to land somewhere near present-day New York City. On November 9, 1620, after 65 miserable days at sea, the passengers sighted land which they determined was Cape Cod and within the New England Territory.

Their attempt to sail around the cape to the mouth of the Hudson River was thwarted by shoals and difficult currents around Cape Malabar (Monomoy Island). Finally, they decided to turn around, and the ship was anchored in Provincetown Harbor by November 11, 1620.

​The Mayflower Compact
Their first act after dropping anchor was drawing up what is called the Mayflower Compact. Of the 102 passengers aboard the Mayflower, only half were Pilgrims. The rest were adventurers and tradesmen, called strangers by the Pilgrims. And as Pilgrim scholar Malcolm Dolby said, “They were a very incompatible lot, in some respects. Some of the strangers, I mean, to put no finer point on it, were probably not a great deal better than neighbors from hell."
www.wgbh.org/where-in-massachusetts-the-pilgrims-first-landed

When the strangers threatened that they "would use their own liberty; for none had power to command them," since they would not be settling in the agreed-upon Virginia territory, the leaders immediately wrote up the Mayflower Compact, in which all passengers consented to follow the community's rules and regulations.

In reality, the Separatists/Pilgrims desired religious liberty for themselves, but they had no interest in extending it to others. Our current notion of what “liberty” means would have been totally against what they were seeking.
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  • January 19 is
     Martin  Luther King Jr. Day


  • January Observations
● Dry January
● Glaucoma Awareness Month
● Mental Wellness Month
● National Adopt a Rescued
   Bird Month
● National Codependency
   Awareness Month
● National Eye Care Month
● National Hobby Month
● National Stalking Awareness
   Month
● Poverty Awareness Month
● Self-Love Month
● Veganuary
● National Oatmeal Month
● National Hot Tea Month
● Bread Machine Baking  Mo.
● Artichoke & Asparagus Mo.
● Be Kind To Food Servers Mo.
● National Candy Month
● National Slow Cooking Mo.
● National Soup Month

​Weekly Observations
● International Snowmobile Safety and Awareness Week (01/ 18-25)

● Hunt for Happiness Week (01/ 19-25)

● International Hoof Care Week (01/ 21-24)

● National Fresh Squeezed Juice Week (01/ 19-25)

● National Clean Out Your Inbox Week (01/ 22-28)

● Kiss a Shark Week (01/26 thru 02/01)

● Catholic Schools Week (01/ 26 thru 02/01)

● National Meat Week (01/26 thru 02/02)
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Enhance Your Writing Vocabulary
​● tunder = ( n) (Australian term) Contraction of “ten and under” – to signify that a house is worth less than $10 million. Finding a “tunder” has become increasingly difficult across Australia in recent years.

● glazing  = (n) The excessive use of praise or flattery, especially by AI chatbots, in a way that seems insincere and artificial. It is sometimes seen as a way of compensating for weak input from an AI.

● bias = (n) The object of a fan’s stanning, or excessive devotion to a singer, band or other media star. It is used especially by fans of the South Korean music genre K-pop

● viby = (adj) Describes a place that has a good vibe.

● doom-spending =(v)
​The activity of spending money that you cannot afford in order to make yourself feel better. People some-times engage in it when they feel anxious /uncertain about the future.
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● pseudonymization =(v) To change information that relates to a particular person, for example, a name or email address, to a number or that has no meaning so that it is impossible to see who the information relates to.

● memiefy = (V) To turn an event, image, person, etc. into a meme ( an idea, joke, image, video, etc.) that is spread very quickly on the internet)

Source: https://www.writerscentre.com.au/blog/meet-the-10-new-dictionary-words-of-2025/
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The Separatists Did Not Stay Where They First Landed
For the next five weeks the Mayflower remained anchored in Provincetown while the leaders set about exploring Cape Cod. Their presence did nothing to endear them to the indigenous inhabitants of the area.  According to Dr. Ian Saxine of Bridgewater State University said, “The first two shore parties dug up the Nausets' food supplies, which they had stored in various locations. They also took possessions from indigenous homes and [in] at least one instance, looted several graves...It all came to a head a month later when a group of Wampanoags and a contingent of Pilgrims led by Miles Standish skirmished near Frist Encounter Beach in Eastham. Arrows and bullets flew, but no one was injured. The native ran back into the woods and the Pilgrims set off in a small boat, only to be blown off course and ending up in Plymouth. They decided it was a safer place to settle, and the Mayflower anchored in Plymouth Harbor on December 18,1620."  With no mention of Plymouth rock.  www.wgbh.org/where-in-massachusetts-the-pilgrims-first-landed
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Sources:
https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2020-11-11/heres-where-in-massachusetts-the-pilgrims-first-landed-in-1620-and-it-wasnt-plymouth
https://www.historysnob.com/historical-figures/20-historical-myths-you-still-believe
https://search.yahoo.com/
https://historycollection.com/19-disclosed-us-history-myths/
https://americarewind.com/20-myths-about-american-history-that-we-all-believe/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrims_(Plymouth_Colony)
https://allthatsinteresting.com/who-were-the-pilgrims
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