"The Old Year has gone. Let the dead past bury its own dead. The New Year has taken possession of the clock of time. All hail the duties and possibilities of the coming twelve months!"
~ Edward Payson Powell
First things first! My brother was supposed to propose to his lady over Christmas, while they were out of state visiting her family, but they both got really sick. (She knew he was going to propose and she'd already picked out her ring). He wasn't about to propose when they were both so ill, so it had to be put on hold.
After carrying that ring in his pocket for an entire week, he finally proposed to her last night.
Do you have any New Years Day traditions at your house? When my Grandma (on my Dad's side) was still alive and living in Houston, the whole family would have a get-together at her house. The rose parade would be on tv and we'd have a great big barbecue. It was all very laid back and there was so much BBQ that I don't really think my grandfather ever left the BBQ pit. Half of the family would be outside in the sun while the other half stayed inside to chat and visit.
Those New Years Day barbecues have been a memory of the past for a long time now. The only tradition remaining, at least for this household, began on my mother's side.
It's a superstition, really.
This tradition/superstition being eating at least a spoonful of black-eyes peas on New Years Day. This year my mother even had the dogs and cat eat at least one.
I've never really thought much about it before, but after a little research I discovered just how common it is in the south. Here's what I found (and I'm taking out the parts that don't apply in our household. The article would be too long):
"The practice of eating black-eyed peas for luck is generally believed to date back to the Civil War. At first planted as food for livestock, and later a food staple for slaves in the South, the fields of black-eyed peas were ignored as Sherman's troops destroyed or stole other crops, thereby giving the humble, but nourishing, black-eyed pea an important role as a major food source for surviving Confederates.
Today, the tradition of eating black-eyed peas for the New Year has evolved into a number of variations and embellishments of the luck and prosperity theme including:
- Cornbread, often served with black-eyed peas and greens, represents gold.
- Adding a shiny penny or dime to the pot just before serving is another tradition practiced by some. When served, the person whose bowl contains the penny or dime receives the best luck for the New Year, unless of course, the recipient swallows the coin, which would be a rather unlucky way to start off the year."
That last bit... I believe my grandparents used to do this at their New Years Day BBQ. I had forgotten all about that!
This is what our New Years Eve looked like:
If last night were Christmas Eve, all the little children in our neighborhood would be having a lot of trouble sleeping, wondering if Rudolph would ever see through that fog.
But actually, while it was very warm last night and the humidity was at 100% the rest of that fog was due to rain and most especially the fireworks people were popping. (Around here, the fireworks have been going on every single night since a few days before Christmas).
By midnight the rain chased away most of the firecracker happy people, so I didn't get to film much. I was also afraid of the rain ruining our new camera.
The videos below are pretty uneventful, other than the noise. The rain this year pretty much canceled out any pretty fireworks shows.
Every year I wish I had a little Christmas tree in my bedroom, so this year I decided to do something that I saw on Pinterest.
It's just a dollhouse-sized tree inside a teacup, so it's pretty convenient seeing how this one won't take me 2 or 3 days to pack away.
I also decided to do a little vignette inside the gazebo that sits on the dresser in the guest bedroom. I could have made it better, but I wanted to just use the items we already had in our glitter house supplies.
I thought I'd share one quick photo of my bedroom since I painted it a couple months ago. It still isn't completely done though. I still need to put up wallpaper border/molding and eventually buy a new rug. I'm also really tired of the wall art, but replacing it will have to wait.
To celebrate the opening of the new Fantasyland at WDW, they did something special. It was a one time thing, which people are a little upset about because it was done so amazingly well.
Rumor has it that the dragon's appearance was due it's curiosity about the new Fantasyland. I never knew dragons were such curious creatures!
My initial reaction was that this didn't look very Disney-ish, but I enjoyed it regardless. I couldn't NOT love it because it looked so awesome.... and real!
This is also kinda cute. Corny, but cute.
It took place at the very new and very FANCY "Be Our Guest" restaurant.
First off, I'd like to say that my thoughts go to all the people on the East Coast affected by Hurricane Sandy. Living on the Gulf Coast, we've had our share of tropical storms and hurricanes and I know from experience that the mayhem is not over after the hurricane leaves town. Thank God, we've never lost a home due to a hurricane but they can do some damage and the aftermaths I find to be more traumatic than the storm itself.
The hurricane which taught me that was Hurricane Ike a few years back. We were in the last 15% to get their electricity back. It took 2 weeks. Well, 15 days to be exact. It was no picnic, and even our animals were having a hard time of it. (Hurricane aftermaths around here are miserable because it's so hot and humid. It wouldn't have been so bad if the temps were cool).
All this coverage on Hurricane Sandy has made me look back on our own storms, particularly of Ike. Hurricane Ike did horrible damage in the Galveston areas. We were really lucky compared to them, as the hurricane itself didn't do much damage at our house. When we were without electricity for those 2 weeks (almost had to cancel our Disney trip), we heard on the radio just how bad it was there but it wasn't until I saw THESE photos of the devastation that I understood. The craziest photos I saw were later, of an alligator on the road and then a Texas longhorn wandering a debris-littered stretch of beach. People so often forget about the animals during these hurricanes.
There are a lot of amazing videos of Ike on YouTube, but here are just a few. (It's no secret that I'm a weather nut, so showing only these videos was a little difficult to manage. I'm pathetic that way).
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I hope to not experience another one anytime soon. As I said, around here it's the aftermath - having no air conditioning for weeks on end - that isn't fun. I know this sounds dramatic, but it really did feel like the world had forgotten us and that it would be several months before the electricity was turned back on. The information you hear on the radio, and then from word-of-mouth never matches up. What was so frustrating for us was that half of our neighborhood got their electricity back within a few days, while the other half - including us - had to wait 2 weeks.
So.... I know it's Halloween and it's supposed to be a fun day that brings back the nostalgia of being a kid again... and while you should still have a great holiday this evening, just please remember those on the East Coast who have lost everything.
I have to wish a HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my aunt!
That's right, being born on Halloween. How fun is that?! There are a lot of October birthdays in our family, many which share their birthdays. (For instance, my brother shares a birthday with his cousin. Of course, this sharing of birthdays in this family is common not only in October).
Did you hear the HUGE announcement last night? Thanks to $4.05 billion dollars (that makes my head spin) Disney now owns Lucasfilm, including Industrial Light and Magic, Skywalker Sound and Lucas Arts. They even own the Indiana Jones Franchise.
On the one hand, I'm shocked Lucas did this.
If you know his personality, hearing this news gives you a serious moment. Yet on the other hand, I'm not surprised seeing how Lucas's favorite place is Disney World and that over the years he and Disney have had a positive working relationship with The Hollywood Studios theme park.
But wait, there's more news to share. And to me it's GREAT! Yesterday morning, we lived in a world where there was no hope ever of there being any new Star Wars films, but now they've announced there will be a new Star Wars film released in 2014!!!! They plan on making Episodes 7, 8 and 9.
And SW naysayers, please don't whine to me about how much you hated the prequels. While they certainly weren't perfect, you have to remember that they are first and foremost meant to be campy children's/family movies, and a lot of people out there accept that and still enjoy them. I was... AM...still extremely PO-ed that Lucas took liberties in changing when Padme's death occurred. I still think this is inexcusable, but in the end no one can argue with the hard fact that this man has changed how movies are created. He's the mastermind behind all that technological advancement that we see in movies today. The man is a true innovator, just like Walt Disney, so I think him "selling out" as some folks are saying was actually a great idea.
And I've discovered that people - especially die hard Star Wars fans - are very unforgiving and critical of Lucas. I can understand being upset over certain things in the prequels, and of Lucas refusing to put the original trilogy on dvd before he made all those updates. (I'm in the same camp, by the way. In a lot of ways I actually prefer the original/unchanged trilogy.. especially the end of ROTJ. I hated how they changed the music and replaced Older Anakin with Young Anakin).
Thanks to Lucas selling his rights to Disney, however, maybe now we actually have some hope of those originals being released. I certainly hope they will. I can't imagine them being so ridiculous as to not, as clearly there's A LOT of money for them to make in doing so. The classic, diehard fans have been extremely vocal about this and I agree with them 1,000%!
And ahem.... remember how I mentioned people sharing birthdays in this family? Well, I don't share mine with anyone but I DO share it with the plaided one himself, George Lucas.
That's always been the only good thing about my birthday.
I'm going to have to take A LOT of photos of our decorations tonight. Halloween is a big deal around our house. People tell us that they come to our house every year just to see the decorations and take pictures in our yard.
They do the same at Christmas, but decorating for Halloween is the most fun!
We did get rid of a lot of our Halloween stuff last year, but I still think it's going to look great. There are a few things we wanted to add at the last minute - we seem to do this every year - but unfortunately the people that are supposed to be delivering our new mattress and box springs today are running late. We caught them in a lie about their delivery start time. They were SUPPOSED to be here from 8 - Noon.
I really despise when people think only their time is valuable and not their customer's. And this isn't free delivery either. They're being paid for a service which they aren't upholding on their end.
So folks... beware of having anything from SAMS Warehouse delivered. The head hancho my mother spoke to was very nice, and Mom said she could tell the guy was really upset, but their delivery people need a firm kick in the pants. Thanks to this particular experience - and one in the past which we've ignored - we're through with them. Even when the mattress was ordered at the store, the manager working the cashier first asked us to STAND IN LINE A SECOND TIME for him to ring up the order.
This was one l-o-n-g line, too. Thankfully, his brain registered that he was about to lose a sale because he rang it up himself anyway.
Boy have I rambled today, but in my defense I'm not feeling well and I'm stuck at the house waiting for the delivery guys to show not show up... when there are errands to run. So other than needing to run errands and not being able to, there's not much to do since last night was when I did the last of the re-organizing in my bedroom, the guest bedroom and my bathroom cabinets.
Although I am seriously thinking of putting up the Christmas Village early. We have people spending the night the day before Thanksgiving, and it takes such a long time to put up all our decorations. I can't have them here and NOT have our Christmas tree and village up. And our tree takes so long to decorate. We have so many ornaments, so our tree is always a popular spectacle around here. It's worth it in the end, but putting it up is such a chore. I think climbing Mount Everest without oxygen would be easier.
UPDATE:
After waiting longer than the 4 hour window, putting off errands, and having to keep the animals in one of the rooms with us so that they'll already be together once that doorbell rang and the breaking-the-sound-barrier-barking-fest began.... the delivery guys FINALLY arrived close to 2:30 in the afternoon. They take the box springs and mattress up the stairs (no set up involved with their fee), and they leave only for us to discover that they DELIVERED THE WRONG MATTRESS!
Ugh!!!! How could the people that load the truck do that? It isn't like SAMS has a lot of mattress brands to choose from. To my knowledge, they only have something like 2 or 3. Can they read English? Apparently, these people are exactly like our mailman that's always delivering the wrong mail. They're probably related.
It really is Halloween, because steam is coming out my ears and I can feel horns growing on my head.
And now for more Halloween goodies! I never did use all my Halloween-themed headers, so I guess I'm trying to make it up to myself through videos.
I hear that Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party is sold out for tonight. I wish I was there right now! Would you know I dreamed about Disney the other day? It was so simple, too. I was with my mother and brother, and at Aloha Isle I was trying the Pineapple Float instead of the Pineapple Dole Whip.
See? The rumors are right. Those drinks/ice cream alone are part of the whole Disney Experience. They really are that delicious!
And now I'm thinking of their cheese fries, too. Make it stop!
