Here We Are!!

Happy January First!!

Around here, we are just a bunch of party animals, let me tell you. Originally we were supposed to go to dinner yesterday at my brother's house, have a kind of late Christmas celebration and come home. I however wimped out, because of the snow and seven degree temperatures. A white new year if you will...with temperatures returning to the fifties for the next two weeks starting tomorrow!  I was afraid I was gong to fall, and well, it was damned cold. We are supposed to go over for brunch today but since they haven't called yet, its liable not to happen. Which is fine with me.   I can give my brother and sister-in-law their Texas gifts (good Texas wine, chocolate covered pecans, pickled black eyed peas for the new year and Texas pecan fudge) at another time. I'll be seeing said sister-in-law in two weeks for a belated holiday high tea at the Brown Palace  which stays decorated until after the Denver Stock Show.

 When I first started going to my daughter's for Christmas, we would get together on New Year's day to exchange gifts and celebrate. Only the people who already shared with each other on Christmas always felt some kind of obligation to share something else. Which has I think, led my brother to the "Christmas only one day" philosophy. Next year I will leave gifts when I go, we'll try and do the lights and dinner thing like we did before and no longer worry about a second Christmas. My goal for next year is to alternate Thanksgiving and Christmas so I will be here every other year.

Being the party animal that I am, after a relaxing dinner and some unpacking and sewing room organizing I was in bed with my book and journal somewhere between ten and ten thirty, and asleep sometime around eleven or eleven thirty. I don't know, but I expect my sister did the same, lol. College student's friends dragged him out to a local dive where they drank in the New Year and then headed to Waffle House. A bunch of fun, are we.

The long weekend makes for a short week, with a few social outings thrown in. I'm not sure if we are knitting tomorrow or not. On Thursday those of us in town and not traveling will have a quick happy hour and on Saturday it's the church rotating dinner group. As I step back into the normal flow of things, I realize that while I am not an introvert by any means, I do need space. Space in between. And that's what I'm aiming for when it comes to my social and personal interactions these days!

The rest of this short week will be for planning and organizing. Because not only is it a new year, it's a new month. I want to plan out the next few months, both activity and financially. I want to take those trusty goals that now are listed at the top of the page and turn them into small bites.

And since it's still Christmas after all, I want to eat the leftover Christmas cookies and drink the hot chocolate and eggnog while it can be found in the store. I want to listen to Christmas music, play with my gifts (more about that later) and last but not least, sit in my trusty chair watching football and knitting.