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Happy New Year! I hope you all enjoyed your celebrations. For me, last night was kind of dream-like and surreal. C and I were hungry so we ventured out to get some food. We ended up at a Greek restaurant (I love Greek food). We walked in and everyone in there was wearing colorful turbans and bells. I didn't get the memo, so I just enjoyed watching everyone else. Then came the belly dancers, shaking what their mommas gave 'em. Yeah, New Year's Eve belly dancers....who knew.

Next we drove to the zoo for the kid's special Zoo Year's Eve celebration. (I don't have kids of my own but I love to be around such happy little people. They see the wonder in everything. So, spending New Year's Eve with them was especially magical.) The zoo was all lit up with tiny lights. All the cold-weather animals were showing off for the crowds. And a walrus was flirting with me. When the fireworks went off all the kids yelled, tooted their noise-makers, and hoorah-ed. It was quite a site.

We ended up back at home to enjoy a fire and a relaxing New Year's Eve ending.

Now we get to resolutions. I am not really sure about how I feel about resolutions. For me, I think it's a way to set myself up for failure. Oh, I'm gonna work out 10 times a week and lose 603 pounds. Nah. I'm going to avoid chocolate for the next year. Sure I will. I think I'll try to read 513 books and write 6 of my own. Um, no.

So I decided to just have one. One resolution that I think I can keep because it means a lot to me. I want to keep in better touch with my family and friends. I resolve to send articles, pictures, cards and letters to them. That's my one resolution.

Now, for the last 3 years, C and I have listed expectations instead of resolutions. These are just things we expect to happen in the upcoming year. It's fun to look back on last year's and see what came true and what didn't. I also do this because I feel like it's good to write down what you want to happen. It seems like the first step to getting something in motion is saying it out loud and writing it down. So, it's a good motivator to accomplish things in the next year.

A few of mine are: -I expect my good friend, VZ, will get pregnant this year. -I expect to get 2 new regular illustration clients. -I expect to finish my children's book. -I expect to illustrate a friend's children't book. -I expect my wedding will be wonderful and beautiful. -I expect to make a few new close friends this year. -I expect I'll visit Ireland this year. -I expect to be happy most of the time, and not get overly concerned with setbacks.

What are your expectations?