Saturday night – Happy New Year 01-01-11 !

It was a good and quite first day of the year..  Most of us slept late.. no one did that much today.Florence,. Julia and Lisa had to catch a 5 PM flight out of Dorval, so we spent the morning helping/watching  them get ready and get out the door. It’s been very nice having them with us. Iit’s very cool how easy it is to collect new friends.. We know them because Deb and the kids once rented a room from them in France..

They did leave Gabe and me with our  toenails painted to remember them by

I can’t remember much else happening today. I did manage to get the dogs out for a very slushy run mid afternoon. There was still 4 inches of wet snow to slog through.. it was like running in sand.  It felt very good to be outside..

Seth and Katie came by for a visit.. It’s always nice to see them. Seth helped me do a root crack on my droid.. which I’m very psyched about.

Around 7 we headed up to Jen and Tim’s for perhaps the last party of the holiday week.. Kevin is heading back ot Texas tomorrow morning so we all went up to wish him well. It was also a time to get everyone’s cooking utensils back to them after nearly 4 weeks of intertwined family and visitors. I think we found homes for all of these crockpots  !.

A

Here’s is Airman Cafferky with his bro- Pat and his mom..


I must say I’m liking Pat’s shirt.

We did repeat a few of the new years rituals tonight, sicne jen and tim weren’t with us last night. one thing we do is ‘angel cards’. You pick a word or two and thin about how they might have bearing on your coming year.. Tonight I picked this one, ‘freedom’ ..   I like it !!!  The picture’s a little weird though..!

OK folks.. hope you all had a good first day of ’11..

nite all, nite sam

-me

Friday night – Happy New Year !

It’s only an hour since it turned 2011 and I’m already in bed… I’ve got some sort of bug with sore throat and a little fever that’s making me feel a bit slow. Even so.. it was a nice end to 2010. It’s been a good year in many respects. Nothing earthshaking.. no major milestones.. but steady healing, new opportunities and relative peace of mind.As I said at Christmas,  It still is unbelievable to me that Sam is not still with us now…  It will always be unbelievable

I spent the day tying up loose ends for work and home.. wrote a few emails, restrung Sam’s guitar… and .. most importantly.. changed the tip on my soldering iron.. In with the new and out with the old.

I thought about making some new years resolutions.. but decided against it.. I’ve been working on the same set of 5 intentions for the last couple of years.. and that seems to be working fine.. so … no specific changes planned.. nor any specific expectations for the year. Sam’s passing has taught me that expecting anything.. good or bad.. is not worth thinking about.. the future is not ever what your think it will b

Around 8 we headed up to David Caroline and Austin’s to spend new years.. We had Deb and her kids, and Florence and her kids with us..

We had a nice, low key evening Diane and Deb had been cooking all day.. so we had quite a feast.. three kinds of home made pasta sauce..fried bananas, carrot cake.. yum..

Around 8L30 a few of us went up to watch the fireworks at Bolton.

Then we did a few new years rituals.. we chose and read animal and spirit cards and talked about their predictions.. (mine had soemthing to do with forgiveness… not sure what for) .. Then we did something I learned while living in Austria.. Here they melt lead and pour the hot metal into water. It’s said that the shape of the cooled metal will tell you about the year to come.. Lead is dangeros in many ways.. so I used Woods Metal.. a lead, tin. bismuth and cadmium alloy that melts at 70 degrees C.. much safer.. at least froem a temperature standpoint..

Here’s what it said abotu our coming year…   anyone see anything in these ? ,

Well.. I’m struggling to stay awake.. The first sleep of the year beakens..

I hope this is a good year for us all.. a year of peace and strength…

happy new year folks, Happy new year sam..

-me

ps. Here’s my favorite version of auld lang syne.. supposedly much closer to Burns original.. hope you like it !