I was driving down the road the other day behind a car whose bumper sticker read, “When do I get to vote about your marriage?”

I smiled and thought how beautifully concise those nine words were. (Full disclosure: I don’t think that what you do in your bedroom is any of my business). A bumper sticker makes our cars mobile soapboxes, and I am a user and reader of them.

Since bumpers on cars are structurally useless these days, our cause-promoting stickers give bumpers a purpose to exist. And, because these stickers are devilish to remove, the stickee is most likely serious about the cause.

Shortly after my husband and I were married, we decided to be good citizens and work for our favorite candidates. Since we are on the side of the workers, not the oligarchs, this meant the Democrats.  We had no clue how to join the Democratic Party, but a church parking lot provided the answer. Every Sunday morning a car with an amazing display of bumper stickers for Democratic candidates was parked there. We approached the car’s owner and asked him how to become card carrying members. We’ve been card holders ever since.

An additional function of bumper stickers is to make a car easy to identify. When meeting a certain friend, for example, I will say to my husband, I know she’s here already, there’s her car.” It is easy to spot a car that proclaims, “Eat Organic”, “Coexist” and “An eye for an eye makes everyone blind”.

My all time favorite bumper sticker slogan was created by Senator Barney Frank. It read, “We’re not perfect, but they’re nuts.” I think I might need that for 2016.

When I worked for a library, I visited schools each May to promote our summer reading programs. My pitch to the kids was simple: Come to the library this summer or your brains will turn to mush. Your teachers will not appreciate your mushy brains returning to school in fall.

The other day I was sorting my art closet and pulled out a portfolio from my college years. My own words came back to me. My brain has gone to mush. Without constant practice, skills once acquired can vanish. “Use it or lose it” is more than a catchy saying, it applies in many instances.

I would have to practice for years to relearn drawing and painting skills I once possessed. Ditto for playing the viola, singing and German conversation.

But all is not lost. I have made conscious choices to put work, practice and time into other areas. Teaching, graphic design, writing, cooking, friends, animal welfare and travel happily occupy every moment of my days.

Our American culture idealizes those super individuals who excel at everything they touch. I believe that most of us can be content without being superstars. Choices and resolutions that make us caring, happy people suffice.

We are on the cusp of Christmas, and some joy is in order. What could be more joyful than the art of children?

Young people view the world with fresh eyes. Their art is spontaneous, original and smile producing.

Andy Warhol was the inspiration for my holiday art project in schools and libraries this December. His commercial art done before he was a pop artist is delightful. I used a small book he created titled So Many Stars as the motivation for the children.

The children all loved his book and were eager to write and illustrate their own books using the “so many” theme. The following art is by kindergarten, first, second and third graders. May it put you in a holiday mood….whatever you celebrate!

It’s been a tough year for the trees along our shoreline. Many of them have been upended by the waves and are scattered helter-skelter along the beach. Taking a beach walk these days involves much climbing over felled tree trunks, ducking under limbs at rakish angles or parting branches to make an opening big enough to squeeze through.

The wonder of living beside a huge lake is that the scene constantly changes. Some days the beach will be an expanse of pure, smooth sand without a rock or shell in sight. Other days are a rock hunter’s paradise with the sand completely hidden by piles of stones, shells and beach glass. Uncertainty is the only certainty.

Like many people, I navigate through the world dependent on landmarks. I can usually return to places I have been by remembering visual clues….a church on a corner, a prominent building, a stand of pines, a river. The beach plays havoc with landmarks.

Our neighbors to the north had a porch swing on their beach. Last week I discovered their swing south of us and almost completely buried under piles of sand. Wide beaches become small and small ones grow large overnight.

This perpetual re-creation of the shoreline is the result of wave energy. While the results of wave energy are explicit, I have always found the physics of waves difficult to grasp. Here is the most accessible definition I have come across:

Waves involve the transport of energy without the transport of matter. A wave can be described as a disturbance that travels through a medium, transporting energy from one location to another location without transporting matter.

Think of people doing The Wave in a stadium. They don’t all rush forward on to the field. They move up and down in place which is what water does when the wave energy passes through.

Everyday, giant engineering projects are happening on beaches all around the world. Mother Nature likes to keep things moving.

When it comes to appetizers, I flunk. I simply don’t grasp the concept. Eating 1000 calories of delicious little tidbits doesn’t work like an appetite stimulant for me. I get filled up, not appetized.

Appetizers at a party can turn into the equivalent of dinner with great speed. But at a restaurant, they behave much better. I frequently order an appetizer and an a la carte potato and call it an entree……which it is for those of us who can’t handle super sized portions.

I love to cook meals for family and friends, and I do not want them to starve before dinner. I try my best to make some pre-dinner nibbles to assuage hunger pangs. But my lack of culinary imagination here is embarrassing. Guests usually get cheese and crackers. I live near a dairy that sells 100 varieties of Wisconsin cheese. I may lack originality, but I do serve great cheese.

The origins of my appetizer problem can be traced to my parents. They were not snackers. Both relished good food, and my father firmly believed that, “hunger is the best appetizer”.

Fortunately for me, my guilt about appetizer inadequacy has lifted. I recently read a delightful article about being a guest at Julia Child’s house at Thanksgiving:

“Even on Thanksgiving, dinner was served at the big kitchen table, with guests stuffed elbow to elbow around its perimeter. Mrs. Child put out Goldfish crackers, not foie gras or canapés, to nibble on with her favorite ‘reverse martini’ cocktails: vermouth on the rocks with a floater of gin.”

I love that woman.