New Year, a New Calendar...

Someone once said that the week between Christmas and New Year's is like a week's worth of Sundays, and I have to agree. Each day slips by and, at the end of it, I've done absolutely nothing other than eat and enjoy being around the hubby and my girls. The huge amount of snow we've had here in the Northeast only added to my lethargy... not that I'm complaining. I've managed to flick through my old magazines and get some ideas together for the New Year. I'm almost like a racehorse, chomping at the bit, waiting to spring into 2011 and get all my plans into gear.

Anyhoo, the other day, a magazine landed in my mailbox, all the way from Blighty. My mum sends me the January edition of the 'Sainsbury's Magazine' each year... Sainsbury's is a UK supermarket... so why do I get the magazine when I can only dream of doing my weekly shop there? Well, this is the calendar that becomes our kitchen family calendar. This supermarket freebie has been the diary in my house well before I came to America, and ever since I have been here. I scribble down every event in the little square box, no matter how trivial. And, at the end of the year, I pack away the calendar, with all of the others.... but not before I've flicked through them all. These little 12 page diaries show me when guests have visited, the vacations I've taken, my visits to the UK, events from during my pregnancies, and all manner of both momentous and tedious occasions. I love that they are all in the same format... this supermarket recipe calendar takes me through the year via healthy suppers at the start of the year, to Easter lamb, to sumptuous strawberry dishes and juicy burgers mid-Summer, and onto stodgy warming meals when the nights draw in, and, finally, back to some Christmas offering at the end of the year. I love looking back at all of the years of my life, from when there was just me, to the two of us, and then to the four of us... like a stack of maps, charting the path that my life has taken to get me to the present day...

Who knows what will go down in this year's calendar... what will I be smiling at when I pack away my trusty Sainsbury's calendar at the end of 2011?

Oh, and before I forget... with it being Friday tomorrow, I figured I would share my Christmas roses with you (the hubby gets me two dozen every Christmas)... I know I've done these so many times before, but they're just too beautiful not to show you...

 

Wishing you all a happy and healthy New Year. I'll raise a glass to you all at the stroke of twelve!
Lx