Hello, Kittens and Dawgs! New years mean new beginnings.  I felt for a while that my Friday posts are too long to enjoy and I decided to make some temporary changes. If these changes work then I’ll make them permanent. For now, it’s experimental, so please hang with me while I make adjustments.

The first thing I’m doing is presenting Skywatch Friday on Thursday and here are today’s photo contributions.  At the end of November wildfires in the Smoky Mountains did 500 million dollars worth of damage killing more than a dozen people and injuring hundreds more. These photos cannot tell the horror of this disaster but you most certainly can see the scares in its aftermath.

The above view, I’m facing the Sugarlands Valley and the below picture is to my backside. The hillsides from south of Gatlinburg going across 441 toward Cherokee you can see evidence of the wildfires.  What is surprising is you can still smell the burnt wood!

I’m not an expert and know nothing about how firefighters battle a blaze but it seems they did a great job at containing the fire given the horrific conditions they were up against – drought and gusty winds.

Along with weekly sky view photographs, I’m including my Celebrate The Small Things segment.

I’m celebrating…the countless volunteers who fought the wildfires and to those serving the community.  I celebrate the kindhearted people who donated time, resources, and money in help with the rebuilding process. I’m thankful to not know of such things and far away from this terror.  I am more so grateful there are a lot of compassionate folks who want to help my fellow East Tennessee neighbors. I celebrate the good news that the authorities arrested two teenagers suspected of setting fire to the Smoky’s and honestly I hope the law doesn’t go easy on them.  Dolly Parton held a telethon last month and raised $9M for Her People and if you’d like to contribute funds, then you can do so through her site.

One last thing I’m celebrating is what I call the perfect Christmas gift, not for me or DH but DD#2 and her husband.  We knew exactly what we what to get them soon after they got home from their Maine vacation after a disappointing upset of not finding a Maine-themed, Maine-made mug. That’s when I began by asking Google and to my happy surprise found the perfect mugs from Peasley Pottery.

DD#2 and her husband went bonkers over the mugs.  She photographed her mug filled with homemade hazelnut hot chocolate with whipped topping for me to use on my blog. Looks delicious, eh? Yum!  The owner and potter, Nancy Peasley, was wonderful to work with.  There was a hiccup with our order. She did an outstanding job in making sure things got straightened out and because she did such a fantastic job, I decided to add a clickable button in my side menu for others to find Peasley Pottery. I like helping people out who deserve it, don’t you? I will tell you this, we plan to buy some of these moose mugs for ourselves. That’s how much we like them! 😉

What are you celebrating?

See what others are celebrating this week and if you want to join the linky, then visit Lexa for details.  Tomorrow, I invite you to join me for some social media fun and your weekly dose of laughter with Friday Sillies.