And another year begins...

  Had a lovely, sane New Year's Eve here at Honeysuckle Hill...we even stayed up til almost 1:30, lol...toasting in the New Year with sparkling grape juice and a cheese and cracker plate and watching NCIS reruns (marathon) most of the evening. Got up  this morning and made cinnamon rolls and eggs for breakfast and the Irishman is off to his usual Sunday Morning Meeting and I am here...doing some laundry, taking down the few Xmas decorations we have out and cleaning up. Decided I would take a minute to come in here and say good morning and start the year off right with a little blogging.

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  Yesterday was a long and emotionally draining day for me, until I got home and sat in my sweetie's arms for a while.  My aunt is dying, and my sister and I took the almost 3 hour trip up to see her. She's my dad's sister and I wanted to make sure to get up there at least once more before she departs this earth.  On the way there, my brother called to tell me that our nephew was in a terrible motorcycle accident at 1 AM  and was in critical condition in Florida. He was at a party and drinking and jumped on his friend's motorcycle and took it for a spin...no helmet, probably no license, and apparently the road curved and he didn't.  He has massive injuries, ruptured spleen damaged pancreas, broken ribs, one of which punctured a lung. A small skull fracture. Broken collar bone.  He bled out almost the entire body volume of blood...they were concerned about kidney damage, but now they think they are okay. They airlifted him to a big hospital where they pumped him full of new  blood, did emergency surgery to remove the spleen and part of the pancreas. He is on a ventilator.  It's a miracle that he is alive. It's a miracle there was no brain or spinal cord damage.   They will do more surgery on Monday, my sister said when I talked to her last night, but the prognosis is good. He will have a long road to recovery, but he will make it.  

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  It was really hard to see this always vivacious, full of "piss and vinegar" aunt lying in that bed almost unresponsive. We stayed for quite a while, talking to her and we actually managed to get her to drink a little and I put her glasses on her and she smiled. She did try to talk to us some, but it was really hard to understand her and hard for her to do.  She has developed Parkinsons and early Altzheimers (though I don't know how they can diagnose that at this stage).  She is dehydrated and we kept pushing the water and a bottle of chocolate Boost nutritional drink on her and she took a bit. When her son got there, he was amazed--said this is not the woman who was in this bed yesterday. She actually waved at him when he came in the door...a little fluttery hand wave. My cousin is having a really hard time with this...as he lost his dad and sister in the same year about 2 years ago.  And he was always a bit of a momma's boy, so that makes it even worse.  I promised to come back up next Thursday (if she's still here) on my day off.  He hugged me and cried and said thank you thank you so many times until I wanted to cry too.  I know how hard this is..I went through it too. And I will do whatever I can to help him and support him and be there for my aunt. 

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  So...all in all, a sad and scary start to a new year, but also one that holds promise and hope.  Getting some black eyed peas and hamhocks and greens and cornbread going for dinner..our traditional New Years Day fare.  I started thinking about some "goals" (thank you, Leigh! lol)  for 2012 and one of them is going to be looking towards a cleaner, meat-free diet.  We have a freezer full of stuff and we'll use that all up first.  (There'll be no wasting of food on HH). Then we'll decide just what direction we want to go. Probably not vegan, but surely a more vegetable and grain based diet. We'll keep our layers.  We'll still use butter, probably. But a change is in the air, I can feel it.  We don't really eat a LOT of meat, and almost no red meat, so this won't be difficult to institute, just a matter of changing some habits once again and going the extra mile to plan meals.  

  We also spent some time yesterday evening talking about things we want to do around here...some things that NEED doing and some things we WANT to do.  We need to put them to paper so that they don't get forgotten or ignored in the shuffle.

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  I hear the washing machine finishing the spin cycle and need to run the vacuum and clean this mess up before the Irishman gets back and we have to dine and then I'm off to MissB's.

  I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year and send blessings of peace and prosperity to each and every one.

   Namaste.