What do you expect will happen in 2026?

Well, here it is at about 9 p.m. New Year's Day 2026, and I am ready to go to sleep after a quiet day with the family. It has been a fine, mighty fine day here at home with my wife and our four young'ns. Those would be our big girl Gracie and our three little boys, Roland, Gunther and Buddy. Those are the ones who live with us indoors. I also feed about five more outside, homeless little'ns who showed up and now call our place home, apparently. Yes, our little ones, indoors and out, are what my wife calls fur-babies. I won't say Gracie, Roland and Gunther are dogs, because we rarely use that word to describe the furry members of our family. Buddy is a cuddly cat. Outside, some stray cats show up from time to time, and my wife insists on giving them something to eat. They stay until they disappear, and I dutifully feed them a big lunch daily. Leftovers in the cat bowls are cleaned up by a groundhog and some possums. For our New Year's Day meal, my wife and I had what is traditional for us, black-eyed peas, mixed greens (including collard), German potato salad. We had some leftover steak from last night's supper, too. I reckon most of that is traditional for Southern and/or country people. My wife is from Texas. I was born in Georgia, raised in the Ozarks by hill country grandparents and parents. We all ate the same traditional New Year's Day meal. So, we ate the foods that are said to bring "good luck," even though we are not believers in so-called luck. No we just like traditions. And we might have created a new one. Let me explain. We generally will feed the fur-babies a few bites of whatever we are eating for supper. So we gave them little bites of steak, little nibbles of blackeyed pes. They even tried a bit of potato salad and greens. While we were giving nibbles to the canines, Buddy the Cat strolled into the room. "Buddy, want a blackeyed pea?" I said. "He won't eat that," my wife declared. "Well, let's see," I said, and I bend down with a few peas in my palm. He ate them. Sure enough, he did. So, now, I'm wondering if a cat who eats blackeyed peas from the palm of a hand will bring good luck in the coming year. Maybe that will become a new tradition. Happy New Year, to all you readers! Let us pray for the Lord's blessings and seek to follow Him, our Savior, better in 2026.