Thursday, January 1, 2009

Ringing In the New Year with a Whimper

Happy New Year, duckies! I hope everyone had an exciting, glamorous New Year's Eve! If only to make up for my own lameness.

I've never been a big fan of New Year's Eve. It feels like there's all this pressure. And I don't like pressure. Especially when it results in me staying up past 9 p.m. So we had no plans for last night. Good thing, too, because I was in no fit state to go anywhere, anyway. NO, I was NOT falling-down drunk. I was falling-down exhausted.

Yes, you do get an explanation of that. But of course.

Tuesday night, when I plugged in the chickens' heat lamp, I blew the whole fuse. Okey dokey. I figured it was the scary, half-stripped fire hazard of an extension cord that connected the heat lamp in the coop to the electrical source WAAAAAY down in the house. But it was late and it was dark, so I figured the chickens could tough it out for one night and I'd deal with it in the morning.

Bright and early the next morning, I'm trudging through 5 inches of snow, with more whirling and blowing down my neck as I attempt to locate the source of the electrical surge that kept blowing the fuse. After about a dozen trips back and forth to the chicken coop, replacing various cords and connectors, I finally determined that the old, crappy heat lamp itself was the culprit. So I tried another, even older and crappier heat lamp we had hanging around. No luck. Finally I plugged in a trouble light up there with a 100 watt bulb next to the chickens' perch, figuring it was better than nothing.

So that was my morning.

In the afternoon, I discovered that what with the approximately 10 inches of snow that had fallen and the rest that had drifted across the driveway, there was no way A. and the MiL would be able to get their cars up to the house. So I shoveled about 250 feet of our 500 foot driveway. Let me repeat that: 250 FEET. With a HAND SHOVEL.

And that was my afternoon.

Then I made dinner (spaghetti with sausage) of which I ate a very large amount, had a mug of wine, and dragged my sorry, spent body up to bed at 8:30 p.m.

And THAT is how we celebrate at Blackrock.

Please tell me you did something more exciting than that.

12 comments:

Aunt Krissy said...

Um, I ate a pint of Cherry Garcia Ice Cream? Does that count?

Anonymous said...

We went to a friend's house, wore paper crowns and played lame board games, drank champagne at midnight, and were home not long after. Woo hoo! New Year's Eve in Mayberry!

Anonymous said...

We went to a friend's house, didn't wear paper crowns but did play board games, ate some delicious cioppino and key lime pie. My friend forgot to chill the champagne, so she put it in the freezer and then forgot about it, so at midnight it was frozen and spewed icy chunks of slushy champagne onto the table. And then after all that nobody drank it anyway. And then we came home.

Roger A. Post said...

We watched the 25-minute long fireworks display at the University from the comfort of our home about 5 miles away. Inside was good because the temperature was -40 near the U. Plus, the show was over by 8:30 so you could have seen it before you crashed, had you been here. You have our belated birthday greetings and wishes for a Happy New Year at Blackrock.

Anonymous said...

Happy new year, Kristin! I spent last night with my sisters, brother-in-law, and nieces and nephew. I fell asleep with one of my nieces around 10:30 or 11, then my sister woke me up around 11:30. We rang in the new year by watching some ridiculous show on VH1 and barely finishing one drink. Good times!

jean said...

I know I didn't do anything more exciting. You must have killer arm muscles. Happy New Year.

Anonymous said...

Drove to Frederick, MD and checked into a hotel. Took a nap then drove to Urbana, MD to party. Arrived back at hotel at 1:30am, woke up at 8am where i learned i was a bed hog from Jenny who ended up pushing me back to my side of the bed. *grin*.

All in all i had a blast.

Anonymous said...

I worry about those cold, cold chickens. It might be best to move them into the house so they can be next to the woodstove. Mia (oops, I mean Mary in MN).

Anonymous said...

Wow...that is quite a work out! I went to bed with baby boy at 9pm...thinking I would get up when he fell asleep. Hmmm guess who didn't see the light of the New Year till this morning? Yeah that would be me, the life of the party!

Julie said...

I stayed up til 2 'am playing Sims cause I'm a dork. Shoveling snow doesn't sound fun.

FinnyKnits said...

You're not even the 10th person to tell me that they "did nothing" for New Year's. I think the hype is all made up. I don't think anyone does anything for New Year's anymore.

Including us.

I made an amazing (I'm so humble) porcini mushroom soup and arugula salad, we had a lot of cocktails and then crapped out on the couch in front of Venture Brothers.

We woke up at 12:15, high-fived and went to bed.

Happy new year.

Anonymous said...

I finished up the 2008 accounting for the farm, same as every New Years Eve. Guess what I do every New Years Day?