The Stop signs at Glover and Queen Streets don’t just instruct your driving habits now; they are proselytizing eating habits, too. Some animal lover — and how can that be a bad thing — has added his or her own message, so now the big red signs read “STOP eating animals.” Somehow, I don’t think that the police department made the alterations to the signs.

So what do you do with a 1,000-plus-pound pumpkin once Halloween and Thanksgiving are over and it took six guys to get the thing off a truck? Nothing! At least that’s what George Eddy and the folks at Blue Colony Diner have decided for the time being. After it took Timmy, the manager at the Church Hill Road diner, and five other guys to get that massive pumpkin off the truck back in October, the decision was made to leave the pumpkin in it prime location at the front of the diner’s parking lot for the time being. Now that we’re in the holiday season, employees of the diner have created a Santa hat for the pumpkin, which continues to do very well. The 1,001-pound pumpkin, Timmy told me last week, was grown in Pennsylvania, but the folks at the diner bought it from a farm on Route 64 in Middlebury. I can’t wait to see what they do with that thing for New Year’s.

Pinched pennies grow even thinner when winter months see the lights on longer and the oil tank emptying in a hurry. Toys never make the shopping cart that parents fill with groceries they hope will last through this week and weekend’s bouts of snow. With my nose to the windowpane I can see snow clouds gathering as my breath fogs the view. I peer through and wonder which cars are headed to do holiday shopping, and which are looking for a spot at the supermarket. I hope some kind-hearted residents will see the banners and signs outside storefronts announcing drop-off locations for Toys For Tots. I overheard a call to The Bee this week from employees at Coldwell Banker at 45 South Main Street, that they will be accepting toy donations between 9 am and 6 pm through December 20. The business is open seven days a week. The gift of giving will warm you up when you drop off a  new and unwrapped gift for a family that simply can’t afford holidays.

Paul Kastner, a 2002 graduate of Newtown High School and a graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and his business partner Artur Janc, have launched a new website aimed at increasing language skills. The site, lingro.com, is a multilingual dictionary and language learning site. The idea behind lingro is to create a dictionary that lets people translate words in their original context, and which remembers all the words a person looks up to help language students improve their vocabulary.

“The idea came about when my business partner Artur was reading Harry Potter y la piedra filosofál [a Spanish translation of Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone],” Paul told me. “While reading, he was able to understand the grammar, but found himself struggling with the vocabulary.” Artur encountered the same problem while reading web pages in Spanish, so to make it easier, he wrote a program that let him look up words on any foreign-language web page just by clicking on the word, explained Paul. Lingro was born!

“We launched lingro.com in mid-November, and since then more than 75,000 people have used the site. We’ve received coverage from over 100 blogs in eight languages, including one of the top five most-read blogs, BoingBoing.net, an interview on NPR, and newspaper articles in Canada and Belgium. It’s been really exciting for us!” Paul said. This cat has checked it out and can tell you it’s quick and it’s easy, and that’s exciting for me.

If language isn’t your forte, maybe cooking does the trick for you. There are always family favorites to bake up during the holidays, but for more than a few new ideas, go to northpole.com/Kitchen/Cookbook. Hundreds of holiday recipes are found there in Mrs Claus’ Cookbook. Should I try the candy cane fudge or the Amish sugar cookies? Santa’s whiskers cookies sound oddly appealing to me, for some reason. I think I’ll start in the A’s and work my way down the list. But do I start with cakes and pies or candies and fudge?

Just having a square meal, let alone a plethora of goodies, is a daily concern for millions of people in the world. A total of 61 people, representing five of Newtown’s churches, participated in Newtown CROP Walk 2007. Barbara Bigham, the CROP Walk treasurer for the town this year, presented these numbers and more during a Human Services meeting at Newtown Congregational Church last week. For everyone who participated and anyone who is interested, there is more good news: this year’s local walk raised $4,511, which was added to the international total of $15 million raised to feed hungry people in the United States and abroad. Twenty-four walkers from NCC participated in the October event, another 20 came from Christ the King Lutheran, seven were from Newtown United Methodist Church, six were from St Rose Roman Catholic, and four represented Trinity Episcopal. Christ the King’s walkers raised the largest sum of money, with $1,860 being raised; NCC walkers raised $1,441, NUMC added another $1,100, Trinity’s walkers raised $50, and St Rose put in another $30. Now that’s a good feeling.

There is also a young pup at Mt Pleasant Hospital For Animals who is once again feeling good. If you have been reading along the last few weeks you’ll remember the “Lucky Lab” that was awaiting surgery at the hospital for surgery on an old injury that had been left to heal improperly. Animal Control Officer Carolee Mason suspects the 8-month-old black Lab may have been hit by a car at some time, but no one knows the tale of the abandoned doggie for sure. The recent surgery went well, I’m happy to report, and veterinary technician Mary Simpson says, “He is doing really great, the surgery was a great success.” Hopping along to a waiting foster home (may I say, I am jealous of all the attention I imagine he’ll receive), he will need to recuperate and work at strengthening that back leg. “This will be a long recovery with a lot of short walks and heavy antibiotics, that’s the first step,” Ms Simpson said. She also says “thank you” to those who have already made donations to help cover costs for the Lab’s care, but said contributions are still welcome!

Remember, there are lots of ways to find yourself feeling good. One of them is to… Read me again.