Happy New Year!

Mary playing the accordion

We celebrated 2013 and my birthday last night with our friends the Rubards and Bensons,  as well as two of Mary's neighbors who also joined us. Mary and Mark made a delicious dinner of lamb and roasted vegetables, which was really delicious, and before dinner we did a wine tasting. Everybody brought a bottle of red wine and we had a blind tasting, which was a lot of fun. After dinner, Mary got out all her musical instruments so we could welcome in the New Year playing our own music. We had castanets, tambourines, drums, harmonicas, and Mary really got into playing the accordion (above), which had us all laughing like crazy. Mary wanted us to march around her neighborhood playing the instruments, but we talked her out of that. We also wrote down on pieces of paper anything we wanted to leave behind in 2012, and then we burned them in the fireplace, letting them go...poof...a fresh start for 2013. We did this last year, too, so now it's a tradition!

Today is a pork and sauerkraut day, something I grew up eating in Cleveland every New Year's Day for good luck.  It's interesting what people eat for New Year's Day--a lot of black eyed peas here in Virginia, but I prefer the pork and sauerkraut. I went to a New Year's Day yoga class this morning,  so I feel refreshed and renewed for 2013. And now I can enjoy my yummy birthday cake, made by my dear friend Lorraine for me every year! It is the best cake ever.

Here we go, 2013....

Lorraine's chocolate cake