WELCOME 2012! JANUARY 2

I had such a relaxing day yesterday in spite of the call for Tom that woke me up shortly before 8AM, from our friend Nancy (she's the mayor of our little village, mom of my friend Brenda, grandmother of 4 of our fave young people) telling us that Brenda's daughter Kristen (she's a little bit younger than Julie) had been in a bad car accident in the early morning hours after attending a house party to ring in the new year; it appears she had been alone, thrown from her car, and had been flown from Roseau to Altru/Mayo in Grand Forks with a lacerated liver, bleeding spleen, and head trauma. NOT the call anyone wants to hear. She's in ICU, her mom and step-dad are down there. Can I ask you to pray/send positive thoughts, whatever... for all of them for me? Nancy called last night to say that the bleeding had stopped, that Kristen was awake but confused. There were some other spots that might be bleeding showed up on the CatScan so they were watching them for internal bleeding. Damned alcohol and not using seat belts!!!

I went to church in the morning. I sat in front of my friend Becky, and her daughter Nettie and little Peter (little being a relative term, this 19 mo old is bigger than his 2 and 3 year old cousins Chris and Will). I had remarked to Becky that I was sorry I hadn't called or spent time with Becca and Ciarra over the holidays as I'd told them I would, but that I had really needed the solitude to recoup from the past couple of months grind. She said that the girls had been really busy anyway so that it really had been okay. Shortly after the service arrived Bobby Jo and her hubby arrived with their 4, Becca slid into the pew beside me and gave me the biggest hug! Then her sister Ciarra came into the pew and hugged me, and then Will, then Chris, Peter played monkey see, monkey do, and came to sit in the pew with all of us and gave me a hug too. Becky started giggling in the pew behind me. I felt like the pied piper and didn't even have to play my flute! LOL Becky told everyone why she was giggling after church, that I had just told her how much I'd enjoyed my solitude and she found it so funny that all the kids had to sit with me. The pew was a flurry of activity all through the service. So much fun. Oh, and the family was all dressed in red, I didn't get the memo so I was not. LOL I wish you could have seen Ciarra (age 8) decked out in her bright red sweater with the feaux feathers on neckline, wrists and down the front, bright red tights, black patent leather shoes, and wearing a gold plastic Disney princess crown. I was so jealous!!! LOL Becca had on a lovely red velvet dress with feathers on the wrist and neckline, and bright pink tights and tennis shoes that promptly came off as soon as she was in the pew.

We watched the last Viking game after we got home from church, for lunch had some of the leftover dip and pita chips from Saturday night. I took a long nap on the loveseat with Bear. For dinner I made "breakfast", hash browns, scrambled eggs with a bit of cheese, and turkey sausage. There wasn't anything we wanted to watch on TV so we turned on music and read. I went to bed to read about 9:00 and turned off the lights about 9:30 and slept through til 6:30 this morning. Awesome!!!

We had a very pleasant New Year's Eve, the pumpkin dips I'd made were delicious!! We enjoyed our sausage and cheese and crackers and a beverage to ring in the New Year. We watched two movies, IT'S COMPLICATED (If you haven't watched that one yet, we found it ROFLMAO-PIMP hysterically funny! Then we watched RED RIDING HOOD, enjoyed that one too. I love dark twisted fairy tales. I made it to a bit after midnight and then was off to bed. Tom had written his sermon earlier in the day so he wasn't up all night either though I didn't hear him come to bed or get up in the morning to shower before heading out to the country church.

I'm looking forward to watching the Rose Bowl Parade this morning! It never ceases to amaze me what they can do with sculpting with flowers and plants for the floats in that parade. Gorgeous!! This has felt so not like New Year's this weekend! I guess that is a good thing. I did not experience any of that feeling of regrets for the old year passing.

So today I start my new year 2012 with the words "TRUE NORTH" as my words/phrase for the year. Last year's word was HOPE. It was a year of hope and I was not disappointed even when things looked bleak for a while after Angie betrayed John. I believe that it will turn out to be a blessing for all, even Ashlyn.

Today is the last day of my vacation, I'm going to do a journal page this morning and then clean up some of my mess that has accumulated over the weekend. I so do NOT want to go back to work tomorrow, but am bouyed up at the thought this morning, having made a payment on a huge loan I took out in late 2006 to consolidate some debts I had, and today realized that I will get it paid off mid year, in 5 years rather than the 8 years they had it set up for! Then I can start paying more on other bills that will put me closer to being able to retire. Maybe I will be able to retire at 62 if I am careful and thrifty. Tom of course will have to continue to work as our main breadwinner, but he wants to work as long as he can to go into retirement with much less debt. After I pay off the rest of my consolidation loan I will have only my montly bills for cell phone, long distance phone service, two credit cards and my student loan to pay off. The student loan is still huge and I'll probably be paying that until I die in old age, but the payments are moderate and I've been paying long enough now that I'm not just paying on interest but also principal with each payment.

LIFE IS GOOD!!!