Happppppy New Year!

It's 2014!  Can you believe it?  Did you ever think you'd live into the 21st century?  When I was a kid growing up living in the years that began with 2000 was almost beyond comprehension.  Being alive when a century changes is one thing, being alive when an entire millennium is ushered in is a whole 'nother kettle of fish, but here we are fourteen years after the years changed to 20-something still going strong.  Yay, us!

Were you up partying to ring in the new year?  Were you even awake?  We weren't, well, I wasn't, I don't know about Durwood, his sleep isn't one continuous thing like mine is.  He's up and down, drinking tea, going potty, watching middle of the night TV, moving to sleep in the other room... no wonder he sleeps into the double digits in the mornings.  I made some fancy-ish cheese spread in case we stayed up to party (snort, we're so not partiers) that we'll have later today and probably during Sunday's game.  Oh, did you hear that the Packers get to play one more time?  (I'm not a football fan but it's impossible not to read the banner headlines in the newspaper whenever they do something really good, really surprising, or really bad.)  If they win on Sunday, then they get to play again, but I don't know when or who or where.  I do know that Sunday's game is here where it's going to be so cold that there are 11 thousand tickets left unsold as of today, so if you've got a spare hundred bucks you too can go sit on an aluminum bleacher bench and freeze your hoohoo's off watching tiny men beat each other up on the frozen turf, oh, and try to move a weirdly shaped ball from one end of a pasture to the other.  Good times.  (I still say it's a ridiculous way for grown men to earn a living.  Sorry.) 

January 1--Pierre-Auguste Cot, The Storm.  The children ran from the storm.  Black clouds roared up the western sky shouldering aside the bright blue day and blotting out the sun.  The wind scoured the ground ahead of the storm gathering up loose leaves and dirt that pelted their bare legs.  Thunder rolled along like a bass drum flourish followed by the cymbal crash and flash of lightning.  They needed rain but the drops came pounding down like needles of ice, roiling in the gullies and carving deep ruts through the soil. 

I think I'm going to go down and sew again today.  That's my big plan for the day.  I simmered the turkey carcass with onion, celery, and carrots yesterday to make stock, got it strained and portioned out, then frozen so that's done.  There's enough turkey and gravy for one more supper so Durwood's off the hook for planning, except for a veggie and maybe something potato-y or noodle-ish since we're mostly out of dressing to sop up his gravy.  I suspect he'll spend the day watching college football (that's what people do on New Year's Day, right?) and dozing in his chair.  Maybe I'll take down the Christmas tree, maybe I'll go see if Stein's has any leftover trees I can buy for a buck for my birdies, maybe I'll just be in the basement sewing and listening either to an audiobook or the Three Tenors.  I talked to an Amazon tech yesterday and he's sending me a new charging "block" and USB cable to (no charge) see if that works to charge my Kindle better.  Naturally since I juggled the one I have in the surge protector thing it's working much better.  *throws hands up into the air*  Maybe I need a new surge protector, yeah, I probably do.  I'll go get one.  Anyway, Happy New Year to you and yours.  Stay warm.  No baby yet.
--Barbara