March 28, 2024

All you want for Christmas is ... rain?

It looks like we may have more spring-like weather for Christmas Day than winter weather. A good chance of rain and temperatures in the 50-degree range if the weather people are anywhere close to their predictions. Of course, we got that nice blast of winter last weekend for those of you who like cold for the Christmas season. I’m sure we are in for some more winter coming up in the next couple of months.

Long holiday

It’s kind of nice having Christmas on the weekend. The three-day holiday for most people will be a welcome timeout. You get Christmas eve on Saturday so you can finish up your shopping. Christmas Day you get to celebrate. Then on Monday, you can hit all the after-Christmas sales. Kind of like the usual Monday holiday setup.

Drake

The Southwest Iowa Night at the Drake basketball games is coming up Jan. 8. There will be dance squads from Creston, Lenox and Mount Ayr, plus Livi Hartman doing the national anthem. Tickets are available in Creston, Lenox and Mount Ayr. They are $10 and get you into both games and provide a concession voucher that gets you a meal at the game. A family of four can do a nice outing for only $40. Tickets are available here at the CNA.

Scrapbooking

The annual CNA scrapbook event is coming up Jan. 13-15 at the Supertel Hotel Inn and Conference Center. The group of scrapbookers always have a good time. I cannot believe how some of those people can stay up for about 20 hours straight working on their scrapbooks. Sign-up sheets are available in the newspaper.

Hospital

It’s good to see Greater Regional Medical Center doing some internal expansion. All the services added over the last couple of years have made the improvements a must to keep up with all the new patients. Hospitals will become more important over the next few years with many of the “baby boomers” starting to get up there in years.

New president

The country is in for a change with a new president taking charge on Jan. 20. The pendulum was probably due for some change.

When things go too far left, sometimes there has to be a correction and get things going the other way. And vice versa.

Like all presidents, some things that were promised will happen and some will not. Maybe both the mainstream Republicans and Democrats can now take to heart that a lot of the American people are fed up with politics as usual.

The stock market sure seems to like what it sees so far with the market heading for 20,000. But I don’t know how long that will continue. Seems like we have some kind of recession every 10 years or so and that time is probably coming unless something really drastic happens. I think the whole country has outspent the amount of income that it brings in. Since 2008, our national debt has gone from $11 trillion to more than $20 trillion just after the first of the coming year. Not a good thing over time.

Employment

The November figures are out this week and unemployment in Iowa is really starting to get down there. The national average is 4.6 percent while it is 3.8 percent in Iowa. Our area around Union County looks to be averaging about 2.8 percent. That is getting really low.

If you want a job, you should be able to find one! It just makes it a lot tougher on businesses to find people. A lot of baby boomers are retiring and there are not as many college kids coming through to take their place. It will be interesting to see if the Iowa population can keep up with the businesses it trying to attract.

Thought for the week: “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” – Mahatma Gandhi