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A slightly belated Happy New Year from the Pattersons! I hope the holiday season was safe and enjoyable for you all. With two hyped-up small children and a new puppy in the house, ours was noisy, chaotic and very, very messy. In other words, normal!

John and I had invitations to two parties for New Year’s Eve but decided to stay home and enjoy a rare quiet moment together instead. Since Phil was out for the evening (with Connie!) we had the house to ourselves once the kids were asleep. For once, they didn’t argue much about going to bed on time. Much as I love having my brother here, it is a problem when he insists on roughhousing with Michael and Lizzie just before bedtime. It’s hard to settle them down afterward! After so many late nights, they seemed happy to get back to their regular night time schedule.

John asked me, just before midnight on the 31st, if I had a list of New Year’s resolutions. I said no. Every year I make the same ones (lose 5 pounds, be more patient with the kids, do more volunteer work, blah blah) and every year I feel guilty when I break them. It didn’t seem like a very useful process!

After talking a while, we decided to do things differently this year and count our blessings instead.

It turns out we have much to be grateful for!

First, of course, is our family. We are amazingly lucky to have two healthy, happy, well- adjusted (usually) children, wonderful parents, siblings and in-laws who are miraculously good friends as well. Also Farley (our new puppy) is a lovable furball – which offsets the extra work he makes for us.

Our friends, Connie and Annie help keep me sane. Mrs. Baird is a caring surrogate grandmother to our children. Ted, well . . . Ted keeps John in touch with his inner adolescent, I guess! There must be some value in that, odd as it seems. Every time John has a “boys’ night out� with Ted, he seems extra glad to be home afterward.

We are blessed in the wonderful home we have, at all its many levels: our comfortable house; this quiet and leafy neighbourhood; our just-the-right-size community of Milborough; the country we live in, democratic, peaceful, tolerant and beautiful; our planet, more rare and fragile than we can ever appreciate.

It was quite a list! In the end, despite our determination not to make any New Year’s resolutions, John and I decided there were two we just had to make:
To take time more often to count our blessings.
To do our best to cherish and care for them all.

That should keep us busy!

Our best wishes to you and your family in this shiny new year!