New Year's Eve

Times change.  A cliché, but true.  When our children were young enough to stay home on New Year's Eve, before they started babysitting or going to parties, we would have movie marathons and watch 2 or 3 musicals or James Bond movies or 2 different versions of the same film.  Then several times Randy and I went to a friend's home to play board games and watch the ball drop in Times Square.  Tonight we're going to two little parties to share the end of 2015 with friends.

Midnight tonight marks the end of one year and the beginning of another.  How might I summarize these past twelve months?  I could mention first time events, like my first dog bite, or the night sitting up in an airport, or seeing e undergo an EEG.  Or I could talk about changes in my life, the biggest one being my taking on e's day care.  Traveling back and forth to Phoenix (32 round trip flights in 10 months), living with E and K and e during the week, playing organ on Sunday mornings with little practice, Randy cooking for himself…our life was certainly different than in 2014.

One thing stayed the same; I continued to quilt and to read.  I made five quilts, starting with Bonnie Hunter's "Grand Illusion" mystery quilt; this is not yet quilted, but the top is done.  I took several pounds of scraps to E's over the course of a few weeks and spent many pleasurable hours cutting them into usable patches, sewing many of them into Bonnie Hunter's "Dancing Nines," made for my sister's newest grandson in North Carolina, and "Narragansett Blues," another pattern by Bonnie Hunter, which I finally finished a couple of days ago.  I made "Round and Around," affectionately known as my Legos quilt, for myself and used it as a topper on my bed at E's.  Then in October I made "Pinks Plus" for my sister.  You can see a picture of each one on the previous blog post.  I have a list of many more I want to work on in 2016.

I read 146 books in 2015, most of them mystery novels.  Hours spent in airports and on planes provided lots of time to read.  Many of these books were checked out from the Alameda library via their e-book program and then read on my iPad-mini.  It surely was more convenient to carry that small device than hardback books.

We spent some time with each daughter in 2015 and saw my dad when he and Claudia flew out to meet e in August.  Randy's sister also visited while e was at our house in May.  We saw K's mom and siblings on various occasions.

This year has been one of growth for me in various areas of my life.  I look forward to what 2016 has in store!