Holy calendar, Batman!  HOW is it already the last day of 2008???

I hope you have something fun planned for tonight. We have our usual New Year’s Eve party with family. This year, the in-laws are coming as well and I’m going to have a house full! But that’s OK—I love it!

There’s a ton of cooking and cleaning to do so I’d better get busy. I love New Year’s Eve!

You know what’s great about being a kid?

1 six year old + 1 bowl Corn Pops cereal + SpongeBob = A perfect morning!

Yep, that’s pretty much what I’ve looked like since Friday. I can’t recall having a lazier weekend, ever, at least not since having children. Before kids, most weekends were that leisurely. It was kind of fun getting reacquainted with rest. Lovely thing, that.

Anyhow, I need to start warming back up to life. I have a New Year’s Eve party and a New Year’s Day dinner to shop and start cooking for, a house that is in sore need of cleaning again, and piles of laundry in each bedroom. Mama’s work is never done.

In this life I’m a woman. In my next life, I’d like to come back as a bear.

When you’re a bear, you get to hibernate. You do nothing but sleep for six months. I could deal with that.

Before you hibernate, you’re supposed to eat yourself stupid. I could deal with that, too.

When you’re a female bear, you birth your children (who are the size of walnuts) while you’re sleeping and wake to partially grown, cute cuddly cubs. I could definitely deal with that.

If you’re a mama bear, everyone knows you mean business. You swat anyone who bothers your cubs. If your cubs get out of line, you swat them too. I could deal with that.

If you’re a bear, your mate EXPECTS you to wake up growling. He EXPECTS that you will have hairy legs and excess body fat. Yup…gonna be a bear.

It’s the end of December, that pregnant, weary pause when everyone is over the holidays and looking for something to do. Instead of twiddling their thumbs or taking down the Christmas tree, everybody and their brother starts making predictions about the New Year.

Now, it may just be me, but it seems like every 2009 forecast I hear is laced with gloom and doom. The Internet is crawling with predictions that include everything from a deepening global recession to evil aliens arriving to save a select few after killing the rest of us.

I realize that these are troubling times, and I don’t want to sound like an ostrich with my head stuck in the sand. But I also know that our ancestors survived many periods in history that were far more difficult than anything we’re likely to face in 2009. And they did this without being able to analyze their options on Google.

With so much chatter about uncertainty and fear, I’ve decided to lighten things up a bit and share a few predictions I’ve made for 2009. I am so certain that these will come to pass that I’ll go ahead and share my first prediction: by this time next year, y’all are going to be stunned and amazed by my brilliancy when you see how many came true.

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So far, the only thing we need to exchange is a remote-controlled hovercraft Eli got that doesn’t work properly. I had grand plans of hitting the clearance sales, being at Target when they opened at 7, but…after staying up til nearly 4:00 a.m. to write my column, I crawled out of bed at noon!

We had a nice Christmas. Extended family drama was at an all-time low, and I think I’ll be able to avoid the therapy I was sure would be needed after this holiday. :)  Today, I do not plan to get out of my pajamas. I am going to lounge around, read, nap and eat leftovers. The boys (and that includes Donnie) are outside playing with all their new toys: skateboards, remote-control helicopters, a new zip line for the treehouse. So they’re amused, I’m content, and everybody’s happy!