You know you're crazy when...

You know you're crazy when you think a holiday's passed because it happened in your manuscript ages ago. I was wracking my brain tonight, trying to remember when I'd spent New Year with neighbors. The memory is so strongly entrenched in my mind that I heard the conversations and even watched the ball drop on Dick Clark's New Year TV show. I saw the toasted old ladies and remembered sharing jokes and avoiding the toxic eggnog. Would that I could say I was asleep and dreaming, but alas, I haven't yet gone to bed.

What are your New Year plans? I will spend the day with my little people and the DH, eating black-eyed peas, cornbread and greens. Traditions die hard with me. It's so much easier to cling to habit than to re-invent holiday celebrations. I don't mind shaking up everyday life, but when it comes to the holidays, I like knowing I can count on the routine.

The new beginning rapidly approaches, and I have so much that needs to be settled. I don't like carrying old problems into a new year, so I will do my best to achieve resolution. Other than mundane trivialities, this has been an excellent year. I've done things I never thought I'd do, gone places and been allowed to grow in unexpected ways. My family is healthy. We eat everyday, have warm clothes to wear, a place to live, snow to shovel, and we have each other. My plan for the coming year is to enjoy more of the same--only better.