Post #921. Endings to beginnings. Skate Away.

Gleam of ice, and glint of steel,

Jolly, snappy weather;

Glide on ice and joy of zeal,

All, alone, together.

Fickle Spring! Who can imprint her?

Faithless while she's captivating;

Here's to trusty Madame Winter.

O

You

Skating!

~ e.e. cummings

Today is the 10th Anniversary of our Engagement. :)

Last night, we went ice skating. Wish there was a river to skate away on, but none are even frozen in this lack of Winter.

Sarah went off to spend the night with her friend and Jim and I watched Midnight in Paris, which thoroughly captivated me. The storyline about a young couple forced to confront the illusion that a life different from their own might be better, and the recognition that the "golden age of yesteryear" is actually the age we're living in right now, could have been written entirely for me. It has all the elements of the way I have always thought about life.

Tonight, we'll figuratively skate into the new year. Changes are on the horizon in many forms.

This blog, while it might survive existence, will take on a new much-leaner form.

However you choose to usher in the New Year, hope it's safe and joyous. Life is far too short to be caught up in past regrets. Embrace those you love tonight and think only on the present joy.

Another year passes on in the blink of an eye.

Post #920. New Year's Eve. 10 Years.

I've always adored New Year's Eve.

• The neighbors stopping by for drinks and treats around the bar in our family room meant my sisters and I would get all sorts of yummies like mixed nuts, seemingly-exotic crackers with names like "melba toast", cookies, candies and falling asleep to the laughter of our parents and their friends against the clink of glassware and music.
• Watching Lawrence Welk and Guy Lombardo's New Year's Eve Specials and Dick Clark's Rockin' Eve, until the ball dropped in Times Square and wistfully wishing for that moment to be there.
• Auld Lang Syne - easily one of my favorite songs ever. Yes, it makes me wistfully sad and yet happy at the same time, and yes, that's why I love it.  
• Clanking pots and pans out the opened-front door and flicking on and off the porch light at Midnight (something we still do every year, even though we're the only ones in the neighborhood making any noise).
• In my late teens and twenties, small parties with friends at the home of my boyfriend, where I'd always dress very pretty in something special.
• Wearing feather hats, and playing Twister with our two youngest daughters in the Living Room, until Jim fell over in one tricky Twister move, and they attacked him with hugs.  
• Celebrating Sarah's best friend's New Year's Day Birthday at the last strike of Midnight with a Birthday cake and presents right then.

None of my New Year's Eve memories involve driving anywhere or being out in a crowd of strangers.

All of my New Year's Eve memories involve being with those I love in a celebratory, intimate, festive setting.

For me, it's the most bittersweetly-romantic night of the year, because of its symbolic ending to another passage of time, where it can't possibly contain all of the memories of loved ones past and present so those nostalgic remembrances overflow as the champagne over the rim of a glass.

New Year's Eve and my love for this night, was made even more significant, when 10 years ago this New Year's Eve, 2011, Jim proposed to me, right before the strike of Midnight.
It doesn't get anymore romantic than that. ♥

Cheers!

Here's a photo below taken on the very night that Jim proposed.

December 31, 2001

And here's a look back at many New Year's Eves...

12-31-02 

12-31-03
At my parents house when they lived further downstate, where Jenny and Sarah tried out Dad's wacky leg stimulators and a fun time was had by all. Note that this was when I had my broken elbow (from the December 26, driveway Bicycle accident - it was near 70 degrees the day after Christmas in 2003)

12-31-04

12-31-06 (don't know what happened in 2005, but must have been an exceptionally quiet New Years - no photos)

12-31-07

12-31-08

12-31-09


12-31-10