New Year's Day

Happy New Year's Day to all! Hope everyone is having a great start to 2010 (will you be calling it two-thousand-and-ten, or twenty-ten? I think twenty-ten is easier to say).

We slept late, until around 8 a.m. Since I didn't know what time Niece and family would visit today, I skipped my treadmill session. As it turned out, they didn't come until late afternoon, after they'd had lunch and visited with Niece's in laws.

So we spent the day doing pretty much nothing, except getting lunch ready. Lunch was a pot of blackeyed peas cooked in both chicken and beef broths, with low-salt ham (a stand-in for hog jowl), onions, banana peppers, garlic, no salt seasonings, and paprika. We had the peas with cabbage sauteed in olive oil and seasonings, and red potato halves baked with margarine and Parmesan cheese, and restaurant yeast rolls. It was a very tasty "good luck" meal that hit the spot with all of us.

Niece said her family had a similar meal at her in law's home...blackeyed peas, cabbage, and deep fried hog jowl (not my favorite...and I'm pretty sure Niece didn't eat that either, since she doesn't like pork).

During the afternoon before Niece arrived, Hubbie and I watched the college football games following the Tournament of Roses Parade, while Mother snoozed in the other room. I recorded the parade on DVR, which we'll watch tomorrow, prior to our favorite college football team's game.

We had a nice visit with Niece. She brought a white ceramic Santa head ornament for our white Christmas tree, and a book and video store gift card for Mother. In exchange, we gave her family a big box of goodies...a jar of Mother's delicious strawberry preserves, a variety of homemade cookies, an Italian cream cheese ball and crackers, and five envelopes each of hot chocolate mixes in various flavors, and five envelopes of apple cider mixes in various flavors. We'd put the gift pack together yesterday.

All three of Niece's children are talented, and today Great-Niece entertained us by playing her keyboard, and Great-Nephew played both his guitar and fiddle. He is most noted for playing bluegrass music. Great-Niece taught herself to read music and play her keyboard. Younger Great-Nephew plays saxophone, but he didn't bring it with him today.

An interesting note is that Great-Niece has auditioned for a role in a movie re-make of True Grit. A call went out for dark-haired, blue-eyed girls between fourteen and sixteen years old to audition in our capital city, so Great-Niece went. 3,000 girls were pared down to 500, Great-Niece among them. She has now had a second call-back. It's a long shot that she'll be cast, but it's a good experience for her, anyway.

Niece and family weren't hungry for a meal when they arrived, but they did indulge in cheese and crackers, cookies, and slices of cake. They stayed until around 6 p.m. and then headed home, about two hours away.

After they left, we had a supper of deli turkey wraps, and then Mother went home. Hubbie and I vegged for the rest of the evening.

Tonight's movie was "The Point Men," a 2001 R-rated film, starring Christopher Lambert, Kerry Fox, and Vincent Regan. A team of terrorist assasins hunt down an Arab terrorist.