Feeling Blessed: Happy New Year!

Oh no, it is already the 10th day in this new year. I am not really sure what to report. Christmas was over. My birthday done. We had a good time but if you read my blogs ... a very quiet time for us.

I really like the time between these two holidays. There is something about it. On Wednesday we were invited to dinner at Carole and Chuck's. On Thursday we went to a funeral around lunch. It was very moving.

On Friday I felt the need to cook. I made some mini meatloafs. That recipe is a keeper.

A healthy recipe. This is all GF with the spaghetti squash and spinach gravy. Ah, so nice. James is not that keen on the spinach gravy though. It's not how his Mom used to cook spinach.

December 30!!! Can you believe that the weather was so nice that we could sit and have lunch outside.

For New Year's Eve we were invited to Jeanne and Jim at 6 pm. It was nice to celebrate with "old" neighborhood friends but also new neighbors we had not met before. This is quite a large community we live in.

When Jeanne had called me to tell me about the party I had just heard on TV that if you are invited to a New Year's party it would be rude to leave before midnight. Mmhh. I had to ask. Was this a New Year's party? Ha-ha, she didn't know why I was asking. 6 pm was rather early to stay till after midnight. As she was wondering I told her about the TV report. No problem. Not a NYP (New Year's party). But of course with me as wife James is not allowed to go to bed before midnight. I owe it to my mother. Where is that champagne? We had some when we were back home from the neighbors.

Btw: This is the day we celebrated our church wedding in Germany 47 years ago. Ah the memories.

Happy New Year!

2023!

Monday - Is this an omen for the year? We had to bring my Telluride to the shop. A warning light had come on. I had just had it in for service a few days earlier, but ... they only had to update the computer system. No charge. But they didn't know that less than 2 weeks ago?

Tuesday - James had the cataract surgery for his first eye.

All went well and he pretty soon was very excited what he could see again. Still, there was a lot of preparation and then things to take care off afterwards ... like the follow-up at the eye doctor the next day etc etc.

Friday we had to bring James' car to that service. It was very early so we didn't bother to eat breakfast before we left and decided to have a nice breakfast before going home. We went to First Watch. Nice but rather expensive.

In the evening we went to one of my favorite church services. The Feast of the Light, the start of Epiphany. Our three younger boys had heard about it when Father Lee mentioned it at Christmas service in the announcements and they were excited about it. We went "over the river" to get them, took them to our house for dinner, and then to the service at 7 pm. Afterwards was the burning of the greens with marshmellow roasting and all those trimmings. And then we brought the boys back home.

Saturday - All week I had been preparing myself for the church ladies coming to our house for breakfast at 9 am. Besides having promised to lead one more time as the president (I only had commited myself for one year) I also had promised a little exhibition of all our nativities we collected from our travels around the world.

I had prepared a hand-out which ended up being about 3 1/2 pages. The nativites were scattered around the house like always but I had put numbers with them.