Happy New Year

After a nice, long stretch of vacation I’m back at work, refreshed and ready for 2007. One of my resolutions was to be more focused at my job, but being that I’m already writing away on my blog, at work, there goes that. I’ve never been one to make real resolutions. Every year I just hope for a healthy, prosperous year and let life carry on as it should.

Matthew and I rang in the New Year with my loyal readers Dr. and Mrs. Pepper and a few other couples at a Chinese restaurant in Chicago. Even though I promised myself I would start the year off on a healthy note, the sesame chicken and Mongolian beef were hard to turn down after a few Asian pear martinis. Being mildly superstitious, I couldn’t hide my delight in my New Years Eve fortune: Others look upon you with great admiration. How nice and refrigerator-worthy.


jess, me and forgot her name...

This was the fifth NYE that Matthew and I spent together and unlike the very first one, this one did not require him to nurse me back to sobriety. It was a low key, enjoyable evening spent with good friends, a sign of good things to come. We spent New Years day in the best way we know how—brunch and an afternoon of sitting on the couch and watching movies.

When I think about 2007, I need to take a deep breath. It’s going to exciting, crazy, busy, fun. My showers, my wedding, my honeymoon, my friends’ weddings…It’s easy to get overwhelmed thinking about everything to come. I just want to be able to remember and cherish every minute of it.

Some sad news brought me back to reality when I found out on Jan. 1 that a family friend had past away. This woman was in her early fifties, a mother of two daughters. She was the sister of one my mother’s dearest friends. She died of cancer. Another life lost to such a cruel disease. Why is it that I have witnessed so many wonderful human beings die of cancer? This news made me feel so far away from my family and made me wish I could be in New York to comfort my mother’s friend.

At the same time I learned that another friend’s sister gave birth to the first baby born in the city of Chicago in 2007. A healthy boy named Jack. For every tear of sadness there’s a tear of joy I guess…