On the first day of the new year, I feel satisfied — though I haven’t accomplished any extraordinary feats beyond getting the living room cleaned up and vacuumed before the start of the Outback Bowl, and getting the Christmas tree un-decorated and taken outside to be planted.  I made minor repairs to a couple of oft-used quilts, worked a bit more on a scarf I started knitting on our way home from Michigan, and put on a pot of homemade soup for supper.

The real challenge comes in the next 12 hours: can I get my children, now with their days and nights quite backward, in bed and awake on time to be ready for school tomorrow?  Delta slept until 3 p.m. today… it’s going to be tough.

I’ve given little thought to resolutions this year, but there are a few.  I want to keep house better (not my strong suit); to write more often, and to write more about relevant issues.  Lastly, I want to encourage others, because without the people who have done the same for me over a number of years, I would be a decidedly lesser person.

Get to bed early, because tomorrow starts the longest stretch of the year without a break.