On and about the new year.

On New Year's Eve, I went out with my well-padded list to the expensive grocery store to buy the food for our New Year's Day family celebration; bought a camel-colored scarf; put gas in my car; and stopped at Target for dishwasher detergent. Then, we rang in the New Year with two movies, True Grit and The King's Speech, with Mexican food in between. Before bed, I baked the cake layers, made Honey Sesame cookies for good luck on New Year's Day, and made bread dough.

On New Year's Day, we baked the bread, iced the cake, made the white lasagne with mushrooms and artichoke hearts, tossed the lovely and spritely salad, cut up three pineapples and divested two pomegranates of their seeds. We had about 30 people at our house. It was rambunctious and the food was good and at the end of it, we collapsed.

Today, the day after New Year's Day, it is my daughter's birthday. She is in St. George for a few days--happy birthday, S! As for myself, I spent the day in the company of my good friend ibuprofen and a sore throat. I read the paper, did the crossword, read some of a couple of books, and lay abed whilst moaning softly. But my outlook is good. It is a new year, I have a new year calendar, and I already have a new year agenda. How about you?

In the new year, I hope to see the friends I miss seeing a little more often; play the piano and sing more; write regularly (I feel I have a little leg up on this, with the couple of dedicated sessions I spent on a couple of weekends); make some movies; walk a little longer and a little more frequently; and really pay attention to the people I love when I am with them. All of that will, I believe, make the new year grand.