One of my favorite wintertime activities is to be outdoors hiking or playing in the snow. The other is to come inside from the cold, curl up under a quilt and read a good book. I have tried doing so under afghans, crocheted by both my grandma and my next-door neighbor, but my toes and fingers always poked through.

Maybe it’s because there’s just a little bit of a wanna-be actor or actress in all of us. Maybe we want to be entertained with crazy antics, or maybe we just enjoy being voyeurs at the table side of a good story.

The 2014 legislative session hasn’t even started, and Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and Republican lawmakers already are arguing about money. Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Tom Flanigan, of Carthage, are criticizing the governor’s decision to reject the revenue estimate earlier agreed on as the basis for spending plans for the coming year.

It has been decades since Wilma Fay Stephens welcomed her younger son, John, home for the holidays. This year, she set up a small Christmas tree in her Joplin home and sent $100 to the California prison where John has been on death row since the late ’90s.

A policy amendment approved by the Kansas Board of Regents earlier in December has left employees of public universities in Kansas concerned about their rights to free speech and has stirred a national First Amendment debate.

More than 60 species of birds, from cardinals to wrens, were expected to be tallied in Joplin on Saturday in the Christmas Bird Count, an annual public science survey to provide data on bird population trends.

Don’t ask me when El Vaquero will reopen, but it’s getting really close. When you see a guy sweeping the parking lot, that’s a sure sign an opening is imminent.

Continuous enrollment in spring 2014 classes will remain under way at local colleges and universities for the next few weeks.

Republican legislators in Missouri have made one of their New Year’s resolutions clear for 2014: add Missouri to the list of right-to-work states. Of the nine bills pre-filed by legislators aimed at restricting union activity in the state, six are right-to-work bills. Seven of those nine bills have been drafted by Southwest Missouri lawmakers, including four of the right-to-work measures.

Owners of an independent baseball franchise who want to locate in Joplin say they are confident they can generate enough support for the team to make the renovation of Joe Becker Stadium worthwhile. They say they were going strong in El Paso, Texas, with the Diablos as a franchise of the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball until the city decided to build a new stadium for an affiliate team of the San Diego Padres.