Happy New Year

The photo is of wine and flowers, not champagne as I've not yet photographed a bottle of bubbly though I'm sure we will have some.

New Years is a time of reflection, out with the old and in with the new. Some make goals, some make resolutions, some party, some stay in, some have a special meal. What's your New Years Tradition? Generally we go out for a nice meal, have champagne at home afterwards and watch the ball drop. After we kiss for New Years, we call family. Then go to bed.

This New Years will be the first without Mom, as she passed in April. I'm writing this early, scheduling it to publish so am unsure if we're staying in or going out this year.

I'm hopeful the year 2010 will be a better year than 2009 was. It was a long and difficult year for us. My Mother was very ill for an extended period of time, in and out of nursing facilities, multiple surgeries, multiple hospital stays before she mercifully passed. My younger brother had surgery and has not yet recovered. My daughter moved from Baltimore to St. Louis (some of which still isn't resolved); and switched jobs. Hubby and I both had a less healthy year than normal. All in all, it's been a stressfilled year.

I am pleased with the progress The Bridge and Beyond has had with donations and membership and hope that continues to grow. Sadly, the need has grown.

I learned how to do a few new things here in the blog world, though I hope to learn a few more in the coming year. I started this blog way back in August of 2005, though I've deleted the older posts to minimize bandwidth. My Alexa ranking is 2,159,176, hope that goes down in the coming year (lower is better) while my Google page rank is currently 2 perhaps that will improve and go up (higher is better). I've enjoyed getting to know some new bloggers and hope that also continues.

I'm trying hard to improve my knitting skill and would like to learn to knit socks in the year 2010.

Happy New Year to all, may you be happy, healthy, and safe in the year ahead.