Ringing in the New Year

Greetings, and Happy 2007 to all,

Tonight it's New Year's Eve in the Villages in Sunny Florida, and 2007 is finally upon us. I must admit to being heartily relieved to be seeing the back of 2006 with all its many horrors. My family has had a rough fall and winter this year, with the illness and death of our beloved Aunt T. The whole family is still adjusting, and trying to figure out how to keep going. Especially hard will be the Christmas gathering, our first offical post-Aunt-T event, in which there will be much double taking as people forget and then remember that she's not there.

More recently, over Christmas, Cookmeister, our family dog, after eighteen wonderful years, disappeared on the day after Christmas, and passed away before we could find her. Since she's been my dog since I was seven, it was a low blow at Christmas, and it's still hard to imagine waking up and not being greeted by her furry golden face. I'm sure that all of you with pets will understand, that they are truly family members, so their loss is keenly felt. Big Brother is devastated, as he spent two days walking all over Bermuda searching, and eventually had to break the news to the rest of the family, and especially to Miss D, my niece, who adores Cookmeister.

So, between that, and the myriad fun adventures of six months of mono (or the best bikini diet EVER - you decide), it has been a rough year. So, now 2007 is continuing to be a time of reinvention. For instance, StitcherAngel heartily hopes that I'll reinvent my wardrobe, especially some of the shoes. The Mummy hopes that StitcherAngel's good influence will rub off and I will be able to make use of spanking sewing machine we found in Targ'ey in the post Christmas sales.

There are quite a few changes coming down the pike at the moment, including my current bookstore minion position, which is great fun. I already find myself in bookstores sizing up their stock, layout, and other customer service and having a think about proper Bermy application. Also up in the air is my continuing education degree, the joys of tutoring, bookstore minioning, and the possibilities of teaching positons, moving overseas, the book Rindeseyu and I are collaborating on, and hopefully the return of my writing muse (blogified, poetry-ready, and book-thoughtful).

The spirit of inspiration has also come upon me in the form of a lovely gentleman in the Villages' Barnes & Noble. He told me the story of his daughter, an Asian history PhD, who, after evacuating New Orleans during Katrina, fell into a writing career and a five book contract. So, it IS possible, if fate and your own abilities are with you.

In any case, for New Year's I've decided to make two resolutions only:

- To write more (lots more - journals galore, and hopefully lots of clackety typing on this blog)

- To do my own little bit of good in the world, by being kind to everyone that I meet, and to try to add small acts of kindness into my day-to-day routines.

So, to those of you out there with a full glass (of anything really, from Kool Aid to Champagne), I propose a toast:

To 2007, may it be full of fun and laughter for all; may the world become a better place, and may we all do what kindnesses we can to make it that way; may we pursue our dreams with fearless intensity, and may we cherish and value our families, in whatever forms they may take.