Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

If you remember writing essays in high school or college, they often were required to be a certain length. I can recall plenty of times when I stressed out over my essay being too short. I didn’t like to waste words and tried to make things as concise as possible. I wouldn’t call myself a long-winded writer by any means. (You’ll never catch me, for example, writing a book that could double as a doorstopper.)

This isn’t a bad thing, by the way. Sometimes, it’s best to just be short and to the point, instead of overexplaining yourself.

But it also means that some weeks I really struggle to come up with a column topic to write about that’ll fill the space I have on the opinion page. As such, this week I’ve decided to write a little bit about a variety of unrelated topics instead. Imagine them as just a few bite-sized thoughts.

Firstly, a question to ponder: how long is too long to leave your Christmas decorations up?

I must admit, I still have my little Christmas tree sitting in my living room and an assortment of the rest of my holiday décor is still on display around the house too. I had intended to take them down this past weekend, but got distracted by doing other things and now they’re still sitting there.

Epiphany, which was on January 6, technically marked the end of the traditional 12 days of Christmas, so I don’t think it’s a bad thing to leave them up for at least the first week in January. But after that? Maybe the decorations have overstayed their welcome.

But on the other hand… plenty of stores put out their holiday decorations extremely early. I’m sure you could probably already find some Valentine’s Day goodies on sale now if you checked. So perhaps it doesn’t really matter whether anyone puts their decorations up way too early or leaves them up way too late. Do whatever you want!

(Maybe I’ll get around to taking mine down before the summer…)

Next: how do you feel about TV shows as they end?

A Japanese series that I’ve been watching for the past six months is coming to a close this week, and I’m excited to see how it ends but also sad that there won’t be anymore new episodes after this. A lot of mixed feelings!

It’s also gotten me to think back on watching the series finales of other TV shows over the years. One of the earliest I remember watching is when Star Trek Voyager wrapped up in 2001. I remember being nervous to see how things ended for the crew that I loved watching every week. The two-part finale was a wild ride featuring time travel, an alternative future, a baby, and the defeat of one of Starfleet’s most menacing villains at the time. But in the end, things wrapped up on a satisfying happy note. (Spoiler alert: the crew who had been lost far, far from home the whole time finally made it back in one piece after seven years of traveling.)

Conversely, sometimes a finale ends in a place you don’t enjoy. I remember sitting down excited to watch the final episode of How I Met Your Mother in 2014, and then being thoroughly disappointed in just about everything that happened onscreen. I was so disappointed that I couldn’t even bring myself to watch reruns of the series for a long time afterwards because it reminded me of how annoyed I was at the ending. (To be honest, I still don’t really watch reruns of this series…)

And sometimes, I enjoy a series too much that I don’t want it to end. So I take a break and avoiding watching the last couple episodes for a few days… and then stretch it to a few weeks… and then maybe even months. If I never watch the last episode, then it technically never ends, right? Right??

Catapulting to the next topic: how much longer do we have to wait until Spring?

I know it’s only January, but I’m already thinking about what I want to do with my garden this year. Last year was the first time I planted everything in large pots instead of directly in the ground, and I have to say I enjoyed gardening a lot more that way. Mainly, I didn’t have to worry with weeds and grass like usual, which was always my least favorite part.

Things, of course, didn’t turn out perfectly. We got an excessive amount of rain at one point that really hurt my tomato plants before I could fully enjoy them. But everything grew well enough that I had a good number of vegetables during the summer (and even some into Fall). In fact, I had such an abundance of eggplant that I needed to start finding some new recipes to cook them all. (If you have an easy eggplant recipe, feel free to share it with me!)

This year, maybe I’ll try to add more variety to my garden. That is, if I can afford the space for a few more pots outside.

Regardless, I hope it warms up soon, because I miss spending time in the sunshine, watering my plants.

Holly Taylor is a Staff Writer for Roanoke-Chowan Publications. Contact her at holly.taylor@r-cnews.com or 252-332-7206.