Happy New Year!

Best wishes to all of our friends and family for a prosperous 2009!

We will probably celebrate today by being thankful that our power is (finally!) back on; for our generator that can handle our two sump pumps and dry our basement out when it floods; and for my wonderful husband, who was smart enough to make sure the basement was ready to handle a flood this weekend. Not one of our belongings was ruined in the flood, even though we had about 3 inches of water in the basement. I LOVE my husband, he does have his difficult moments, but he is so smart and resourceful!

It's the last of the holidays for a while...thank goodness! We are about celebrated out right now, with all of the birthdays, holidays, traveling, decorations, gifts, etc. that needed to be attended to. I worked so hard to scale everything way, way back this holiday season, and even though I did manage to do so, we still had quite a lot of hustle and bustle. Holidays are tough when you travel with two tiny children, even without a major power outage and flood.

Now for a quiet (sort of) day at home. I have milled some rye berries to make a light rye bread. We will be making Reuben sandwiches for dinner because Tom, of course, will require some sauerkraut for the traditional German New Year's feast. (It is said that Germans eat carrots and cabbage on New Year's to bring in financial stability. In that case, I should be making Reubens for every single person who works for the Big Three today. Better get to work, huh?) I would love to get the kids out of the house today without freezing our buns off, but the library is closed, the museums are closed, everywhere worth visiting (read: everything that is free) is closed. I can't wait for the world--and our lives--to get back to what we laughingly call "normal."

I hope everyone has an enjoyable New Year's Day!