Happy New Year! ~~~ Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Well, I had fully intended to keep up the blogging...but I see I've fallen behind! I have a couple of writings "in the works", but they are not completed yet...they are long stories and will take a bit more time before I should post them! ;-p

So, random thoughts: We've had a Happy New Year..had TWO of them, actually: January 1, Twenty-Ten, and then Year of the Tiger began on February 14th. Nice having that "second chance" at a new start! We didn't stay up to midnight in January...but we {I} always do for Chinese New Year, and Michael naps in his recliner chair until I wake him up to do firecrackers.

So, at midnight we toss the firecrackers out the entrances to our home--and this year there are more doors to our house than EVER, so, gee, I'm going to run out of firecrackers more quickly!! A pack out the front, a pack out the back and a pack out the patio door, which will cover both the door from the pool room and the one from the bedroom--they both open to the patio....save firecrackers that way! Haha!

After each pack, we have to calm the dogs down...old Toby is so hard of hearing this year, the noise doesn't bother him; but Garner is really skittish and Penny seems nervous just because Garner is, I think. Once they are more relaxed we can continue with our celebration.

I make Jai every year that I can...and this year I COULD, thanks to a shopping trip to a very nice market in Fremont where I was able to find EVERYthing I needed! [I needed to restock ALL my supplies this year]. Cousin Broderick and his wife Virginia took me shopping there when we stopped by to visit with them during our Christmas travels. So, after firecrackers we sit down to a nice bowl of Jai and sweeten chrysanthemum tea...right after a nice toast to the New Year: we each down a shot of Jack Daniels [mandatory for Michael...it helps the Jai go down! lol] It's a delicious dish but a very different one. I wish we could get the "candy" we used to get when I was a child...Dad used to buy it in Chinatown, SF...usually in a really old shop with rough and worn wooden floors, way in the back...it came in barrels: candied coconut, candied melon pieces and candied kumquats [like tiny oranges]. We'd also get dried lychee nuts, so sweet-- after cracking into the rough textured thin shell, you nibble the sweet dried fruit off of the big smooth seed in the middle.

I'm so happy that Michael indulges me by sharing in my Chinese New Year celebration! We've had many wonderful years and perhaps our good luck IS helped by stacking oranges, putting Li See lucky money in the rice storage container, lighting firecrackers to chase the bad luck away. AND, the house gets a pretty good cleaning beforehand, too! :-) We hope all our friends and family had a great new year...and another great start of a new year: Happy New Year and Gung Hay Fat Choy!