Happy New Year!

I invited my bridge group and significant others to my house to celebrate New Year's Eve. Only half of us were there, but it made for an intimate, relaxed evening. I made up my mind that I wouldn't stress over preparations and didn't. I spruced up the house enough, cooked more than enough wonderful lasagna, a recipe of things I thought sounded good. There was enough sauce left over for a dinner for Jim and I, which went into the freezer for a night he doesn't feel like cooking or when spaghetti sounds good. I also made a pan and a half. We didn't even touch the 2nd pan! (Jim had a slice for breakfast).
Janet made a big, delicious salad of leafy greens, chopped pear and apple, dried cranberries, tossed with poppyseed dressing. She offered cashews and walnuts on the side as a kindness to me, I only like peanuts and in recent years-a limited amount of almonds. The smell of cashews makes me nauseous. Linda brought a delicious beer cheese, crackers and celery, Barb provided the dessert, a pineapple nut cake, and an assortment of cookies. Some wine and bread and we were set!
All but two of us were at a New Year's Eve get together at Hope's 10 years ago at the turn of the century.

Hope had saved unused decorations, napkins, hats, horns and blowers in a box which she passed on to me. I used the table cloth she had used-nice vintage touch. I added unused things back into the box, added some horns and blowers I had bought and napkins. So, we'll have items from both events for the next one. We may do one in 5 years, now that we are aging a bit. Jim is the youngest at 51 and Hope the oldest at 69. In 10 years, Hope will be approaching 80!

I had two activities for us. I printed out a 5x5 clock face and drew hands on it, put the date and each person's name as place cards. They were to write predictions for 5 and 10 years from now, could be personal, political, world, local, etc. And, I cut up scrap printer paper and we wrote down things we wanted to rid ourselves of to put in the fireplace. Some had lots to write and others only one. Linda brought the game Life Stories, which we really had fun with.

In a corner by the furnace in my basement, was our time capsule that I'd been holding on to for all of this time. About 36 inces of PVC pipe with end caps. Like so many things, my memory of what might have gone in it was wrong so it was interesting, but not as personal as I'd hoped. I thought I remembered writing predictions of where we'd be in 10 years( I still think someone has an envelope of those). But, alas, no such notes appeared. One of group, Janet Johnson, was diagnoses with Melanoma after that party and sadly, died two and a half years ago ( She would be a likely person to have gathered the predictions). But inside was the Courier Journal from 12/31/99, which proved to be a big hit. Looking at the price of cars and the summary of the decades, including stock prices, was great fun. Also, there was a Time magazine, a poem about friendship all in attendance signed, party favors from that evening. I replaced the paper and added yesterday's, included our clocks with predictions (not peeked at), the goofy jokes and paper crowns that were in the Holiday Crackers we popped just before midnight, and I'll add some pictures. We decide the other Bridge Babes ( who we missed) need to add predictions, too, before I seal it up again. We play bridge next week.

I kept a scrapbook for a good many years and hauled it out to look at the pictures for 1999. I've probably got 5 years of pictures not scrap booked yet.

Sadly, the adults didn't play with chalk as much, but Janet left this little chalk message.

I wish all a prosperous 2010. I have thrown away some things in the fire I hope stay permanently gone and welcome the possibilities of a new year and decade. It's like a blank piece of paper or a winter garden awaiting new creations and life.
Can't wait to see what it becomes.