Happy New Year to All

Tonight we are going to the annual party of a close friend to celebrate the coming in of 2009. While I'm happy and appreciative that we have someplace to go and good people to celebrate with, I must confess that, at this point, I'm pretty much over the holiday festivities. After our Hanukkah/Christmas celebrations, I'm ready to pack away the decorations and get back to regular life. Regular life is busy enough!!!! Yesterday I spent the hours doing laundry and completing other tasks that were necessary after being away for six days. I'm thankful that N's sister did a load of laundry for us while we were in N.O., because even with that having been done I had tons to do after we got home. That's not unusual for us, however; I do laundry just about every day! I hope everyone has a happy and safe New Year's Eve celebration tonight, whatever you do.

Just Back from New Orleans

My family and I just flew back in from New Orleans yesterday evening; we had a great time with the family but I think we all are a little bit glad to be home. We had a chance this trip to visit with everyone and even spend a whole day in New Orleans (my husband's family lives in Lafayette so that's where the majority of our time in Louisiana is spent) with his sister and niece. It was great to be back in a city that I call my second home, to be sipping coffee and munching on bignets at the Cafe Du Monde and riding the trolley down St. Charles. I have made my own bignets at home in a lame attempt to duplicate this experience, but they don't taste the same when one is eating them anyplace except the Crescent City. The flight into Louis Armstrong was a bit rocky at the end. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but it seemed like our descent was very quick and very sudden, followed by a very rapid throttling of the aircraft back upward. After everyone on board had recovered from shock somewhat, a flight attendant came on the speaker and announced that we'd experienced a "missed approach" and would be circling back around to try landing again. Needless to say, we were very happy, excstatic even, to be on the ground when finally the pilot's attempt was successful. Phew!!!

My daughter enjoyed hanging out with her aunt (my husband's sister) and cousins as well as with her grandparents. My mother in law has taken ill and we were glad to have the opportunity to spend some time with her; as well, we were grateful for the time our daughter was able to spend with her. I wish that our little one was able to see them more often. My grandparents were all very influential in my life; their homes were second homes for me since they lived close by. The world has changed a lot in the past twenty or so years; lots of people don't reside close to their families anymore. It's kind of sad because the unity of the larger family suffers a bit for the distance. That said, while I miss New England, I don't miss those long Massachusetts winters! Brrr.... It was cold enough in Louisiana the last day that we were there, and I think the temperature was in the 50's! So wimpy I am nowadays.

Soooo, now it's time to get back into the swing of things again. I have some things I need to do today, such as pick up payroll from last week. I am looking forward to making a good, healthy dinner tonight (our stomachs are a bit shaken up by all of the rich foods we've eaten over the past week, such as crawfish etouffee-so yummy) and hope I will be able to take a ride over to Whole Foods Market later (or this morning, depending upon how quickly I'm able to get out of here). The selection they have for vegetarian dishes is out of this world and I think that after several days of strange food overload we could all use an easy on the belly vegetarian meal. Also, I feel fat as a hog after not working out last week, working out sporadically over the two weeks before that, and eating lots of high calorie foods that I normally would not consume. I'm anxious to get back into a healthy routine again.

Happy Tuesday!!!!