Happy New Year - Welcome 2012... Are you the last?

Yeah, Happy New Year, yadda, yadda... No really, I do mean it, and yes, I know I am a day late. But let's face it, my blogging has become terribly intermittent nowadays. I just don't feel the constant craving to write as I once did.

The funeral was beautiful, poignant, painful and terribly sad. Watching a four year old and an eight (she turned nine the day after the funeral) year old bury their Mum is just not right. Watching Lisa's mum bury her daughter is just not right.

Lisa 1991

Hearing the wonderful eulogies and seeing the hundreds (yes hundreds) of people that loved her was uplifting... and just not right.

I hear her voice in my head. It is as if I keep rethinking recent conversations then I will not forget what she sounded like.

I certainly was NOT in the mood for the celebrations of New Year's Eve... but as it was at our home I really had no choice in the matter. Fifteen adults and nineteen kids... plus us.

I arrived home late Friday, awoke at 3am Saturday, was exhausted by 6pm... when everybody was due to arrive!

Thought I'd be in bed well before midnight, leaving the revellers in the capable hands of Big Boy.

1/1/12 - 4.30am sunrise over the mountain.

I was the last man standing at 5am. Sober? Yes, but not for lack of trying (thank you Pip for that glorious concoction). And certainly by 3am the solo sober stayer. Everyone else was beyond merry, and we had a group decide at 4am to make use of our couches for the night. Wise decision. And lovely to wake up to the smiling (and groaning) faces of friends on the first day of the year.

Where are the photos? Well, it was such a fantastic night NO-ONE thought to take the time from the partying to take any! A rare occasion, believe me, for this group are the happiest snappers of all. It just goes to show how wonderful a night it was.

So, Happy 2012 one and all. Do you think the Mayan's are right - or even that it has been interpreted the right way? Is this the last NYE we will see?

Well, if it is the last it was a good one! How 'bout yours?

December 31: Resolution #best09 Gwen Bell

Resolution you wish you'd stuck with. (You know, there's always next year...)

Gwen Bell Best of 2009 Challenge

Would you believe I made NO New Year Resolutions for 2009? Truly, I didn't. Not only were we midst the Wise Woman 1 crisis, but I also managed to tear all the muscles between my shoulder blades on the 29th of December. In the shower. Washing my hair. You can stop laughing now. Really, you can. You did know I managed to concuss myself on the pantry door quite a few years back... didn't you? Oh, well maybe forget I mentioned that one.

So there I was pumped full of valium and panadeine forte to begin with when Big Boy, in his infinite wisdom, picked up this massive cockroach to chase the kids with. Monster flew straight at my head, I instinctively ducked forwards, did ten times more damage than the original injury.

And if I had been able to move without screaming in agony, I would have torn Big Boy's testicles off with my bare hands and put them in the blender. And fed them to the dogs. Then we both would have been seeing this in our heads:

Does that count as a resolution I didn't keep?

And you can stop laughing. I mean it. STOP LAUGHING! NOW PLEASE.