For Auld Lang Syne...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

2010 is here, and I couldn’t be more happy to usher in the New Year and holy moly- new decade!  I learned a lot in 2009- about life, love, and most importantly, about myself.  While I am glad that symbolically, I can put many of the tribulations of the past year behind me, I find myself wanting to memorialize the things that I must not forget and although I do not really do the Resolutions thing, it IS the New Year.

Things I Resolve to Remember From 2009:

1.  I resolve to know how strong I am, how much I can endure and how much I have withstood so that I will no longer be afraid or unable to make the tough choices.

2.  I resolve to remember that I do deserve love. Everyone does.  Real love.  Reciprocal love.  Love that inspires growth- that nurtures.  I resolve to remember that love is not a perfect fairy tale, but it can be a wonderful reality.  And I resolve not to settle for anything less.

3.  I resolve that when the time does come (and it will come again…eventually) I will keep my heart open, but that I will remember to give share it only with those who will care for it as the gift that it is, as I would do.

4.  I resolve to know that my happiness is my responsibility.  That I am the one who makes the choices and lives my life.  I can CHOOSE to be happy.  I can CHOOSE how I live my life.

5.  I resolve to always remember who I am, be secure in it and embrace it.  I resolve to stay true to who I am and what I want.

6.  The other day I was in a blue mood.  My brother said to me, “Cheer up- Life is what you make of it!  You’re alive.  Be glad you’re alive!”  It’s a simple statement, but it’s true.  I resolve to remember that I AM ALIVE and that laughter, friends, family and all that good stuff is what makes life worth living.

Now, there are things that I want to do as part of my Baby Steps to Body Love Challenge for the New Year- I’ll be posting those as part of Challenge  #7 on Sunday night.  I suppose those are actual, tangible resolutions, but it’s the lessons I take with me from the last year that will sustain me in the new one.  Anything is possible, right?

I rang in the New Year in a pretty low-key way.  My brother (who is a real life Van Wilder- I kid you not) invited me to a party, but I knew that I just needed to stay in this year.  So, I rang in the New Year with my mom, stepdad, and step-dad’s sister and her family.  We all made homemade Chinese food together and then I watched movies with my cousins until we saw the ball drop.  I was really content.  For the first time in a while.  I think there comes a point where you have to realize that your hope and faith were misguided.  That it’s not your fault.  That you did everything you possibly could and gave it everything you had, even when you didn’t have to anymore.  It’s a HUGE punch in the stomach when it happens (especially when there’s a particular moment or incident that triggers it), but it can also be truly liberating.  So last night I drank to the New Year and a new, different kind of hope.  And I meant it.

So, what did we eat?  There were spareribs, sticky chicken wings, Moo-shi pork with homemade mandu pancakes, egg rolls with broccoli slaw, brown “fried” rice, steamed dumplings, and my contribution: Crab Rangoon! Homemade crab rangoon is absolutely delicious, but I hadn’t made them in a while!  I made up my own recipe a while back and I was wracking my brains trying to remember exactly what I had put in them!  Turns out, it’s really simple and completely tasty.

Sauteeing the red pepper and garlic

I had to make 48 of these babies- the whole package...BO-RING! And E! channel was NOT showing "Movies That Rock," as I was wrongly led to believe.

There were rows upon row of these things, just waiting to be sealed up! I kept saying to myself, "It takes 1/4 of the time to eat these as it does to make them!" Oh, but it was worth it.

Our feast, as photographed with mom's not so great camera...

I had a little bit of everything, managed to NOT eat like it was 1999 and Y2K was on its way causing uncertainty about the fate of the human race, and really enjoyed the meal.  Dessert was a small bowl of peppermint ice cream with fresh whipped cream, devoured as I watch Ryan Reynolds in “The Proposal.”  It was the PERFECT combination.

Tonight, my mom and step-dad are making a what promises to be a delicious dinner- I can already smell some pretty good stuff cooking!  The dog is sleeping on the chair next to me and I am about to start a major design project.  Life, as I am living it in this moment, is pretty damn good.