New Year's Resolutions

Oh yeah ... before anyone asks, here are our New Years' Resolutions:

Mine:

Lose 5 pounds.

Lauren's:

Walk 3 miles a day (or the equivalent workout thereof).

Something tells me that both of our resolutions will be workable ... I'll probably lose those 5 pounds keeping up with her on her walks.

More Christmas Pics

Some more Christmas pics from the holidays:

Christmas Eve















Christmas Day














The Christmas Table














Randy and Lisa (Lauren's sister and brother in law)














Woodgie Wearing a ???














Woodgie Getting a Gift














Rachel (one of Lauren's nieces) and John (Lauren's Dad)














Making Springerle














Here's Woodgie showing off a fresh batch just prior to baking.















Springerle Before Baking














Christmas Decorations, Washington Park, Ottawa, IL

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year!!!

We stayed at home to ring in the new year. With snow on the ground, the roads mushing over, and the temps dropping outside, we decided to ring in the New Year quietly. With the kitties in attendance, we watched a bit of Emeril Live and later worked our way through a couple of episodes of Crusade until right before New Year's local time. Bowing to Woodgie's Quaker tradition, we observed 15 minutes of silence leading into the New Year ... a time for prayers, thoughts, observations, and hopes that the New Year will bring us a better year. God knows, after the year I've had, I could use some positive breaks, and a chance to start over.

Returning to the usual (for most) New Year's Eve tradition, after that, we toasted the New Year with a kiss (awww!), and a bottle of August Hill's Illinois Muscato, one of their new, very sweet, low-alcohol dessert wines. For luck (since Woodgie isn't much of a fan of black-eyed peas), we sampled some pickled herring to accompany the other snacks.

This morning finds us watching the Tournament of Roses parade ... watching it whenever I can is one tradition from childhood that I won't stint on. Of course, this year, we're watching it for the Star Wars special event during the parade. Only true geeks such as ourselves would watch a parade simply to see two floats filled with Star Wars characters and the Grambling marching band dressed as Imperials while playing music from the movies.

We'll probably call around to our families (or vice-versa) sometime today. In one case, I'll have to sneak calls in before the Rose Bowl game.

Also today, Woodgie introduced a new idea to me: to have a productive year, on New Year's Day you should do something work-related but not too much like work, so I read an article about freelancing as a technical writer.