We have made it through another year and a new page has turned.

Woo!

What will 2023 hold?

Be still for a moment, take it all in. All is calm, all is bright.

What was your favorite holiday memory?

If you have fitness, financial, travel, home and health goals in 2023, many in Murfreesboro can help you achieve them and work with you to come up with realistic plans to do so. Check out the lengthy list of Pulse advertisers for some recommendations.

December had some fun moments and some unique challenges, with travel, holiday festivities, extreme cold and sickness—it seems lots of illness was going around in December. We wish you good health and cheer this year.

The Pulse team is going to continue doing our best, striving to provide an interesting and informative picture of the Murfreesboro area within the pages of this publication each edition.

Who wants to join us? What are your ideas? What’s the news? What individuals and organizations should the Pulse highlight? How about placing an ad for your business in the Pulse? Keep in touch: bracken@boropulse.com.

Bracken Jr. and I got the chance to say “hi” to Kane, the legendary Big Red Machine, a.k.a. Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs, at Rep. Mike Sparks’ chili cookoff event on Dec. 2.

I would have made a significant campaign donation in exchange for being choke-slammed through the table with chips and cheese and the big chili event, but did not get the opportunity to make that offer before he headed back east.

The Mayos headed east ourselves later in the month and hit the Great Smoky Mountains and Dollywood. Good times. We will return.

There’s a lot to do out there; we keep an ongoing list of Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge and Smoky Mountain trails, activities, restaurants, attractions and points of interest that we have not yet gotten to.

Thanks to the Pulse team, to everyone who makes this little community publication a reality.

Thanks to Mr. Steve Morley for his complete decade of service, polishing everyone’s sometimes-slightly-unclear ideas into the most decipherable, clear, proper and professional product possible. The years keep on ticking by.

Thanks to Valley Growers for serving once again as the official poinsettia supplier of the Pulse. Many of you may have seen Nneka or myself out delivering a little Christmas color and cheer. Good to see everyone.

Congrats to the Blue Raiders, the 2022 Hawaii Bowl champions, winning an exciting game on the island on Christmas Eve.

Georgia and TCU both earned some respect and their places in the NCAA college football championship game. Those college semifinal games were some battles.

I think I have cracked the code: when many people use the phrase and accompanying concept of “diversity and inclusion,” they really mean “conformity and exclusion.” It can be helpful to keep that in mind.

I know, it can be confusing when someone means the opposite of the words that they use, but knowing that, most of the time, the intention of “diversity and inclusion” is the antithesis of those words’ actual definition can explain a lot. Well, the word “and” is true to its meaning, at least.