Goodbye 2008! It’s fading fast and the fat lady WILL sing tonight…this fat lady that is. It’s sooooo over! I have bigger and better plans for 2009 so I’m welcoming it in with style. My sister (#3 out of the 5 of us) called and canceled their trip here today from Ohio because she’s sick, so I’m a little down. My kids were all so looking forward to them coming. They have four boys similar in ages to my kids so they’ve grown up together and are great friends. We love having family for New Years. We even had all 16 (all but the Chicago gang) to our house for the Millenium for a slumber party…great fun! Anyway, we took the kids to a movie this afternoon (Benjamin Buttons) and now we’re getting ready to party. I helped DD get ready for ‘Plan B’ and she just left with the boyfriend for Pittsburgh in her skinny red party dress. DS1 has to work for awhile (restaurant server).

Over the years, Mr.SA and I have done it all…parties, clubs, but when the kids were little we mostly stayed home or had neighbor parties. If you’ve been following my life at all you won’t be surprised to hear I had an evil New Year’s plan. I went around the house in the afternoon and turned all the clocks ahead two hours. It was great…we counted down with the kids until midnight and celebrated the whole shebang; party hats, noise makers, party poppers with confetti…it was fun. Of course, my neighbors probably thought we were crazy banging pans on our front porch at 10:00pm, but the kids were so happy they were able to stay awake until the New Year (well, sort of), and we had a peaceful hour or so after they went to bed to ring in the New Year. This went on WAY more years than we even hoped it would…then one fine year my oldest (DD) heard about the “ball drop” from someone at school…darn that TV…foiled again! I’ve since confessed to my evil plan, and the kids think it’s hilarious (well, sort of).

So now I’m all dolled up with nowhere to go (well we were invited to a neighbor party, so not quite)…but it’s OK…I’ve got my party hat on and party poppers ready to go…we’re ringing in this New Year in style…the fat lady is singing tonight…she’s going DOWN in 2009! Happy New Year all!

"Auld Lang Syne" (times gone by)

Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind ?

Should old acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne?

CHORUS:

For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne,

we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

And surely you’ll buy your pint cup!

And surely I’ll buy mine!

And we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.