HAPPY, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I hope that you all had fabulous New Year’s Eves and that this year promises wonderful things for all of you.

Our New Year’s Eve was a lot of fun.  We went over to our friends’ house down the street where we enjoyed good company, good food, and I “learned” to play Texas Hold ‘Em.  I say that in quotes because I didn’t (and still don’t) have a clue what was going on, but I must say that I had a lot of fun.

Our friends get together every so often to play and the way they play is really cool (if you have issues with cards/gambling, although I suppose there are people who should stay away regardless).  Each player put $10 in the jar and the final three split the pot.  So even if you lose, you only lose $10.  My hubbie and I came to the conclusion that it cost us no more than going out to dinner (because neither one of us won ), but we were with good friends and laughed a lot over some of the silly bluffs that we tried to get away with!

When we both fell out of the game, our friends also have a dart board, and so we threw darts for a while.  I hadn’t thrown darts in several years and so my arm’s a little sore today!  We actually have a dart board that we need to find a place to hang — it really is a lot of fun, too.

Now if my friend just had a pool table, we would be in fine shape!  (I LOVE to shoot pool, but unfortunately don’t care for going to the types of establishments one must go to to shoot pool . . . and we don’t have a table or a place to put a table, if we could afford one.)

In addition to the good company and the fun games, the food was DELISH!  I brought Picante Cream Cheese dip with tortilla chips and Fritos.  Lisa’s mom made Chicken Spaghetti, Texas Trash, and these jalapeno things that were awesome.  She split a jalapeno, scooped out the seeds, filled it with cheddar cheese and a small piece of venison sausage and then wrapped a piece of bacon around the whole thing.  YUM!  She also took a block of cream cheese and poured jalapeno jelly over it and served it with Ritz crackers and Triscuits.  YUM again!  Her aunt made little egg rolls with all the right dipping sauces.  Needless to say, no one went hungry!

It was a family party, so the kids were there, too — they played and ran through the house alerting us to the passing time and managed to stay awake for the Big Event — Happy New Year!

I have to say, this year’s New Year was so much better than last year’s.  We went to a murder mystery dinner with SIL, and it was a total fiasco.  While there was some drinking last night, it was done responsibly.  There was no pressure to drink and I enjoyed the couple of glasses of wine I had with my meal.  At last year’s party, we got there a little late and the host made a big deal of saying, “You guys gotta’ catch up!  Have a shot of schnapps!”  I was 27 days shy of my 40th birthday and I could have sworn we’d stumbled through a time warp into a college party.  I don’t have a problem with responsible drinking, but the party last year was a bust because the focus was all on getting loaded.  When it was all over, they said “We should do this again next year!”  I think not.

So when we received the invite down the street, it was a great relief and a very enjoyable evening. 

Well, my family is waiting for me — we’re going to watch one of the DVD’s that they gave me for Christmas . . . one of my favorite movies and one I recommend highly!  See ya’ later!