I wonder if your menu on New Year’s Day included black-eyed peas and cabbage?  Tradition tells us if we eat certain foods on this day we will be prosperous.  If we don’t eat the appropriate dishes, we can expect a hard year financially. 

Having discovered that vegetables really don’t have the gift of prophecy, I still fixed bean soup (a substitute for the peas), pork, and cabbage on January 1. 

I grew up hearing a lot of old sayings quoted at the approriate season or activity.  One of them was “Whatever you do on New Year’s Day is what you will be doing the rest of the year.”

Well, I spent my New Year’s Day doing the following:

• Having my quiet time
• Fixing meals for my family
• Talking, listening and laughing
• Sorting through a closet of stuff
• Cleaning up and straightening the house
• Posting a blog
• Checking emails and Facebook
• Talking with a friend on the phone
• Reading to the grandchildren just before I tucked them into bed
• Watching a little TV with Sweet William before I snuggled up to sleep

It was a day of doing ordinary things with people I love.  And I think that old saying has some truth in it.  New Year’s Day was a fairly accurate projection of what my 2011 will look like.