Greeting the new year.
Happy new year!!
Wishing everyone a happy, healthy, successful 2026! And may there be enough joyous noise and light to ward off all the troubles, and those who would foment and abet them.
2025 felt heavy on the troubles and trials front - in the world - Cheeto-in-Chief and his ilk, among my circle - four notable deaths, routines out of balance. I would point to the overall effect of these as a culprit in the lack of blog posts here. So I am looking forward to a fresh start, and this post is part of that renewal.
New Year's Eve day was spent taking care of administrative tasks - not losing money and benefits: spending down my limited purpose flexible spending account to make the salary dock count, collecting on as many credit card perks as made sense. And then, toward evening, finishing up my charitable gifts that happen to get me a better deduction this year than next.
I still cut it close, so hopped into a cab with Sissy (at her insistence), and we arrived at the Central Park loop just as the fireworks 🎆 started and the NYRR New Year's run 🏃🏻♀️began - a fun, low key way to start the year. It was our fallback plan, but a darn good one; next year maybe it will just be the lead plan. I might even be inspired to think about signing up to run one of these years...
As for ever going down to Times Square? Unlikely. Though I was not beyond peeping the lit "2026" in the days before it was hoisted up for the big show - and, no, I did not wait in line with the tourists; no self respecting New Yorker has time for that stuff (hence the sideways shot). We have ordinary tasks of day to day life to get done in this big city of ours.
As we exited Central Park, a light dusting of snow began to fall - so lovely. As was the strikingly illuminated Ukrainian Institute (may the people of Ukraine have lasting peace and security soon).
Nothing better to wrap up New Year's Eve than a late dinner of local pizza - with veggies for a healthy start! (That's what Sis and I told ourselves; it was her first real meal of the "day," and my way late dinner.) Lots of other folks had the same thought, arriving dressed up (the women in short skirts and heels - open toed! the men more casual and sporting nice sneakers, as Gen Z does) from their fancy parties - I imagine overpriced, crowded and noisy, where perhaps they were underfed? We rather relished that our casual plans allowed for bundling up in appropriate cold weather attire and comfy footwear - no more cold legs from the scanty New Year's Eve fashion choices of our youth. So over that! (Clearly rolling into my cantankerous older lady phase.)
And on the first full day, I accepted the bounty of my Buy Nothing community as incentive to (late) start my day. On one of my returns, encountering a spent Christmas tree adorned with a giveaway hat from the prior evening's festivities, branded with a corporate gym logo, captured the mood pretty perfectly - done with the old, marking aspirations to do better in the coming year.
My first attempt at better: Selecting the quinoa bowl for lunch! Sissy got a couscous based bowl with similar healthy salad and protein fixings.
Here's to good choices and good outcomes in 2026!
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