New Years gathering

We spent this past weekend cleaning up the house from the insanity of the holidays. It seemed that no matter what I did over the last few weeks, it was very difficult to walk through any part of our house without dodging boxes or piles of stuff. It was wearing on me. so we spent the better part of 3 days cleaning, organizing, and throwing away.

We did a little after Christmas shopping and managed to acquire some great stuff from Pier One to make the living room look New Years festive rather than Christmas festive. The jars are going to be an ever changing thing, I think. I'll fill them with various things for different seasons. I love the stuff we got for New Years:



In the end, this is what the living room looks like:



We had a little New Years gathering and for once, it was actually little. Just 5 of us and some pinochle. It was the first time we'd stayed up until 2am playing cards in a very long time.



Then last night we did a reading of Melissa's new play "The Church of St. Pinky at Katy, TX". For treats, I made a new cupcake. Nick had been aching for some molten chocolate cake, so I made just that, in cupcake form. These are the results:



They were insanely easy. They had a cinnamon cream sauce, and a gooey chocolate center. Heavenly.

Apparently all New Years diet resolutions were still on hold last night.