A Tabula Rasa

High School Latin still rattles around in my brain from time to time (but rarely when it would be useful), however today it seems appropriate. January 1st- a new year- a "tabula rasa"... a clean slate! There seems to be a cynicism about New Year's and the requisite resolutions as people get older, but I still think the prospect of a clean slate is appealing: another chance to get it right! Who couldn't use a second (or third or fourth...) chance? In light of that, one of the things I've always said I wanted to do was keep a journal. Never could keep up with it before, but maybe with a New Year, a clean slate, and pink blog page (grin) I'll do it this time.

A couple of years ago I was reading my great-grandmother's journal entries. Mama Adams died when I was in college, but I spent several fun summers with her and the "aunts" as I was growing up (if you've ever read "Eight Cousins" by Louisa May Alcott, you get the idea of what my summers were like, minus the Aunt Hill and Phoebe. If you haven't read "Eight Cousins", go read it- it's good!) Anyhow, Mama Adams kept a daily journal and would usually write something about the weather and anything interesting that happened that day. It was fun to go through the pages and find entries written in her scrawly handwriting, such as "Hot and humid today. Little Sandy and I went to the grocery and picked tomatoes in the garden." I think my kids might get a kick out of it later on too, so... here goes. We'll see how I do.

And speaking of second chances, we rented the movie "Cinderella Man" and watched it last night. Two thumbs up, in spite of it being a boxing movie. John and I had a wild and hoppin' New Years Eve eating dinner at Tribeca downtown, shopping at Walmart for their camping trip today and watching the movie. Party animals... that's us. Our neighbors on the other hand, are party animals and have converted their LARGE garage, which is larger than some people's houses, into a dance studio and they partied loudly into the night. No sense in going to bed early here! We might have to join the "if you can't lick 'em, join 'em" club... but we aren't quite there yet.

And about the camping trip... When John saw that the weather for Jan 1st was supposed to be in the low 60's, he was determined to seize the opportunity to use all the new camping supplies he received for Christmas and he and the three oldest kids took off for Land Between the Lakes. But on the other side of that 60 degree front is a thunderstorm coming this way! They're either going to come back stinky and happy or stinky and wet. I'll let you know.