Happy New Beer...Er, Year!

I spent New Year's Eve quietly at La Casa del Terror, with a shepherd's pie, a bottle of inexpensive (but tasty) white wine fished out of the discount bin of one of (many) neighborhood liquor stores, Olivia curled up at my feet (something she's done a lot more lately) and some incessant channel-flipping from one network celebration to another. (The local coverage on Chicago's ABC affiliate featured two of the hosts shivering out on a deck at the still-under-construction Trump Tower--at one point, they were huddling together for warmth, and I'm not so sure they were kidding.)

At around ten minutes after midnight, after replying to JB's text-message New Year's salutation, I went to bed. Excitement! Given how disastrous most of the New Year's Eves spent out and about have been, though, going to bed early wasn't such a bad thing.

New Year's Day was arguably even quieter, with little more accomplished than straightening up La Casa a bit (it needs much more than "a bit" of straightening, but this will take time and effort) and packing up items I wanted to send to either storage or the Dumpster out back. I unearthed my exercycle (which had become a de facto coat rack) and weight set in the hopes of using both more frequently in '09 and put away all the Christmas decorations for yet another year.

I haven't made any resolutions for this year--since, in years past, I've broken most of them before January is over, I don't see the point. I just want this year to be an improvement over last year. Given how hard 2008 sucked, that shouldn't be too difficult.