Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

I hope all of you had a safe, wonderful and joyous celebration, whatever you chose to do. 

Me?  I stayed in with Ben and the dog and enjoyed a leisurely evening of our favorite activities.  To kick it off, we walked Duncan well before the neighbors started lighting M-80s and let him pursue his favorite activities: sniffing out squirrels and peeing on poles.

NYE Appetizers

We dined on light appetizers while playing games and finally had a late dinner of bibimbap while enjoying our latest favorite TV show, White Collar.  We read and relaxed and chatted and cuddled.  Staying in has been our tradition for years and typically we have a series of movies to watch.  Sometimes it's a trilogy like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings and sometimes it's just a theme like "Stallone action movies".

In our younger days, we went off to the clubs in a large group that inevitably ended in comical disaster.  One memorable year, we were at Club Nation the night it closed.  We were upstairs having a drink and the DJ forgot to announce the countdown to midnight; in the room below us, the DJ had so many train wrecks that the audience swarmed the stage and trashed his gear.  Within our lovely, drunken group, there was tension between couples (and triples!), and one girls' feel hurt so badly that she pranced down the streets of Seattle barefoot.  The evening ended desperately trying to get a cab at 3 am while avoiding drunk drivers.

I don't miss those days.

Without the pressure to go out and have a good time, I enjoy New Year's celebrations much more than I used to, and in keeping with our more recent tradition of staying in, I was asleep before midnight.  Seeing how I'm so well rested, I can face 2012 with a spring in my step and a song in my heart.  I hope you all are doing the same.

Happy New Year, everyone!