Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a safe New Year's Eve. I haven't posted on here in ages. If you can believe it, I'm still waiting on my floor! Hopefully, it will be completed next week.

What I do have, are new dishes! I've got service for 6 right now and am planning to order more but am waiting for a coupon! I went to Zanesville Pottery and got a lot of serving pieces. The dishes are multi-colored - sage green, gold, red and ivory. They look beautiful behind my glass cabinet doors.

I also bought myself a Roomba (the robot vacuum cleaner) to help take care of the wooden floors. I'm impressed with how it works. I questioned whether it would do a good job but I've gotten LOTS of dirt out of my carpets and from the plywood floors! Opie barked and barked when I first turned it on but I told him he better get used to it and there was no sense wearing himself out. Now he just looks at it.

As most of you who follow this blog already know - I'm having the traditional pork and sauerkraut dinner today. There will be ten of us here - Mom, Dana, Bryan, Clayton and Tiffany, Jodi and Eric, Jane and Sam (Tiffany's mom and her boyfriend) and me! I made a cheesecake yesterday and made a chocolate raspberry sauce and a regular raspberry sauce to serve with it. I also made breadsticks last night. Today I will put the sauerkraut, pork and smoked sausage in the oven and am making an apple glaze to go over the pork. We are also going to have homemade applesauce and, of course, mashed potatoes. Sounds good, huh?

Carla and Sarah will be here on Sunday to stay with me for a couple of weeks. If you don't know what I'm talking about - Carla moved here I think 3 or 4 years ago from Texas because of her husband, Dean's, job. I met her when she was hired to work at the office. She's just a fantastic person and very artistic and stylish! She helped me tremendously in the creation of my kitchen. Anyway, her husband now got transferred to Arkansas. He has been living out there since September or October. They finally sold their house in St. Clairsville and found one in Texarkana. Sarah is a sophomore in high school this year and wanted to finish out the semester here. Since they moved out of the house in St. C. right before Christmas, they had no place to go. So when they return from visiting family in Texas, they are staying with me! I'm looking forward to having them. It is unfortunate that they will have to put up with the installation of the hardwood floors but - oh well!

I wish you all a healthy and prosperous (yeah, right - in this economy?) New Year. It's amazing how the years just fly by. This time next year Jace will be walking all over the place and probably talking up a storm. Happy New Year!