While we continue to celebrate the holidays with my new friends and family, enjoying this morning’s early breakfast hospitality of my brother in-law’s folks and, later, dinner with mine, my sister and I reconcile our differences, strengthening old sibling bonds that run deeper than temporary political hot topics.

My mother, in the meantime, reconnects me with the early adult education of my father, exemplified by the following scanned book/calendar/flashcard titles:

My brother in-law and I look through my father’s small collection of tools, from handmade ballpein hammers used in my great-grandfather’s metalsmithing days to brand-new circular blades still in their plastic packaging.

Let us remember the usefulness of what we have and worry less about what we don’t have.