Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all! Hope everyone enjoyed the time off - time to get back to work.

Here's how my holidays went:

Weekend before xmas - took Max to meet my aunts and cousins. No one was aware that he was even coming, let alone here, so it was a big surprise to everyone. Fortunately, no one was mad at us for keeping it a secret, and they were happy to meet him.

XMas - we had my mother-in-law, brother-in-law and his daughter come over. It was a nice relaxing day. We ate leftovers from the xmas eve dinner we had at my mother-in-law's, so there was just a table full of food to pick from, no cooking and no hassles.

My gift was the last one presented, and I was completely surprised - a lamp. But not just any lamp - a LEG LAMP! and yes, it is right in the middle of our front room window.

Took a couple of days off before returning to work on Friday. Spent most of the day tidying up some papers and going through an online training on HTML (Hypertext Markup Language - it is how web pages are written/designed). This was the first step towards my new education goals.

Over the mid holiday weekend, I ran into a little trouble. My back went out - WAAAAAAY out. I was on my hands and knees or just lying flat most of the weekend. Came in Monday (New Years Eve) more tilted than the leaning tower of pisa. Fortunately large doses of ibuprofen, ice and stretching have me almost upright today.

New Years Day was football and food. My mother-in-law cooked our family's traditional meal of pork and sourkraut, and I parked on the couch resting my back watching football all day. Unfortunately, I had no idea that the hockey game was being played, and was very sorry I missed it.

I took one more day off, and now am back to work.

This weekend - I am getting some bottles, and can hopefully bottle my first batch of wine. YAY!

Best of luck and lots of health, wealth and happiness to all in the new year. I know I can use it!