I’ll admit it, last year I received no sentimental notes from fe(male)lines on Valentine’s Day, but this year I know our troops overseas will be taken care of when they receive letters from Newtown students. Project Chair Donna Monteleone Randle is busy again working on the St Valentine’s Day Project, which has grown from sending 50 cards out five years ago from Sandy Hook Elementary School to sending roughly 2,500 from multiple schools in town last year. Just this week Ms Randle announced all Newtown Public Schools will be participating in the project. It is not even Thanksgiving yet, and it seems Newtown’s heart is growing bigger than ever.

The word around town is the new C.H. Booth Library exhibit in the building’s meeting room brought in a crowd to “Here’s To Painting!” The exhibit, which includes artwork by local artists, Newtown Middle School art teachers Claudia Mitchell, Arlene Spoonfeather, and Robyn Dohrenwend, Bambi Engelman, Meg Gioffe, Martha Glynn, Margaret Hull, Kyra Middeleer, Maureen Rohmer, Michelle Rosenthal, and Marianne Zelno, had a well-attended opening reception on Sunday, November 8. The exhibit will be on display at the library until November 30. I’m going back for a second look around. See you there!

Newtown’s five fire companies will be working together next weekend when they host the annual Fill The Fire Truck Food Drive. Members of Sandy Hook, Hook & Ladder, and Hawleyville companies will be at The Big Y, and members of Botsford and Dodgingtown will be over at Stop & Stop on Saturday, November 21, from 9 am until 2 pm. The firefighters will be accepting donations of food and money during those five hours, with all donations to be taken to FAITH Food Pantry at the end of the afternoon. Hope to see you there.

There is a Newtown resident who thinks that Nancy from the Botsford Post Office facility deserves my Good Egg Award. “Even with the extra work from the temporary closing of the Hawleyville Post Office, she is always smiling and happy to answer the most minute questions,” says Nancy’s promoter. “We do complicated international mailings, which include passing customs, and she always treats our packages professionally and with an impressive knowledge of the regulations.” I agree: Nancy is a Good Egg! Congratulations, and keep smiling!

Speaking of Good Eggs, Newtown residents Gaye and Joe Yllanes were honored November 12 as “Local Heroes” by Bank of America. They received $5,000 to donate to a nonprofit of their choice. These awards are part of Bank of America’s Neighborhood Excellence Initiative, which is the bank’s way of sustaining nonprofits during this challenging economic time. Gaye and Joe became a foster family in 1987. Today they have 14 children, 10 of whom are adopted. Gaye and Joe have the exceptional ability to meet the needs of children with complex medical and emotional issues. Additionally, they are both community and volunteers, and also work with Family and Children’s Agency to guide and support other foster parents to ensure that more children have a loving family to call their own. Looks like the Good Egg needs to be shared today!

Newtowners are always pleased as punch when one of their “own” makes it good in the real world. Jessie Keyt, Carol and Wayne “Grizzly” Smith’s daughter, has co-written a screenplay for a movie that has won several awards on the festival circuit, and has been widely hailed by members of the press, I’m told. The movie is Skin, based on the life of Sandra Laing, a dark-skinned girl born to white Afrikaners in apartheid-era South Africa, and stars Sophie Okonedo and Sam Neill. Carol and Wayne had the opportunity earlier this week to view the movie, and are keeping their fingers crossed that a local theater will book Skin sometime in the future. “It’s worth viewing,” Carol says.

Dialing a telephone was always a problem for me, so I was happy when push-button technology arrived. Starting November 14, we will all be pushing a few more buttons for each call we make, though, remember. The addition of two new area codes to our state means that all phone calls in Connecticut — even cellphone calls — will require ten digits to be dialed. Calls outside of the local area will still need a “1” before the ten digits, as always. I suppose I’d be dating myself if I said, “Remember when you only needed three or four digits to make a call?”

’Tis the month before Christmas, and all through the town… the Christmas Lighting committee is preparing the luminaria boxes and candles for distribution for the December 4 evening event in Ram Pasture; chairperson Layne Lescault is scurrying about to get everything in order for the Newtown Youth & Family Services annual Holiday Festival on December 6; director Mary Andreotta is coaxing the best out of the Newtown Choral Society members in anticipation of the December 6 concert at the Meeting House; the VNA Thrift Shop behind Edmond Town Hall is stocking its shelves with holiday bargains; Ann’s Place, Home of I Can, in Danbury, is preparing for the 7th Annual Festival of Trees to raise funds for programs supporting families and individuals with cancer; the NHS Singers are busy rehearsing their Fifth Annual Madrigal Dinner evening of merriment for November 21; WIN and Newtown Social Services are knee-deep in putting together Thanksgiving Baskets for the less fortunate among us (monetary donations can still be sent to WIN, PO Box 286, Newtown CT 06470 to support this cause); holiday bazaars and art shows are popping up all over the area; and of course, the religious organizations are kicking into high gear for the holiday season. And let’s not forget that somewhere along the way, Thanksgiving Day comes along. So much to do, so little time to do it in — but so much for which to be thankful.

I am thankful, among other things, for a warm spot in which to curl up while I ponder the world around me. If you want to know what my pondering brings about, don’t forget next week to…. Read me again.