I’ve never been a huge New Year’s person.

In my hospital nursing years, I worked almost every New Year’s Eve, often putting back together the results of partying a bit more than was optimal. This was part of my deal with the establishment, as a single mom with a young child, that I’d work all the rest of the holidays but I needed Christmas Eve and Christmas morning off.

One of my more memorable New Year’s Eves happened when Dave was about four. We’d been to church and then came home and read three whole extra stories.

About then, my phone rang and it was a couple of friends from my youth group days wondering if I wanted company. I said sure, if they didn’t mind the flannel jammies. They brought the bubbly and I broke out some herb roasted cashews and we had a blast catching up on everybody we knew.

This year is a food year at our house. And some time for pondering food traditions.

My mom didn’t care for shelling beans or peas, or for cooked leafy greens. This was a perspective that worked fairly well in Minnesota. Not so much after we moved to Florida!

According to the old southern traditions, we may be in trouble when it comes to luck in 2018.

My hog jowls won’t be here until the middle of next week due to some glitches in local farmer land.

I don’t have any collard greens in the garden just now, but there’s gorgeous black kale in the fridge which will just have to do.

And, with a smidge of regret, we’re skipping the black-eyed peas this year. It seems I really do feel better when I don’t eat them.

So, what, then?

Well, my best ever pot of butternut squash soup with mixed bone broth from Saturday night. Bright, velvety, comforting little pint-sized gems in the freezer for dark winter days.

Gorgeous, local rib eye steak for Bill and stone crab claws for me on New Year’s Eve, along with a big bowl of very green salad. (There are advantages to not being able to leave home!)

And, for Monday, dry brined local pork chops and barely wilted kale with garlic.

At the very least, we’ll be ahead on vitamins!

We might be ahead on community, as well.

We’re helping to support our local foodie farmer and butcher friends.

We’re voting with our wallets on critical issues like health and the environment. It may take a while longer, but I have faith!

We’re stashing enough food in the freezer to help out friends and neighbors.

And, next week, I’m trying out a new recipe for making broth from crab shells. One of these days, I’m going to get it right!

It would also be ok if we won HGTV‘s dream home giveaway.

Which would, by the way, need to be big enough for a couple of freezers!

For this moment, know that you and yours are in our thoughts and prayers. And may 2018 be filled, for all of us, with a whole lot of loving our neighbors as ourselves.

Blessings and Peace from Sue, Bill, Sarah, Phoebe, and Luther

Thirty-eight years ago, in this particular moment, I was sitting, hugely pregnant, with the ankles of several elephants, feet propped on a coffee table wondering if the restless, opinionated child within me would ever decide to make an appearance.

It had not been an easy pregnancy. I was experiencing pre-eclampsia, which we used to refer to as toxemia. It’s a tradition in my family! My blood pressure was high. I gained 10 pounds of water weight a day and spent each night running to the bathroom, exhausted and, frankly, scared.

Add to that the whole single, food-stamp mom thing…

And the salt free p-nut butter on salt free bread…

I was not, I suspect, anybody’s inspiration for madonnas on Christmas cards.

This year is much different!

This year, that “kid” and I are rocking gently along on a big boat with the ones we love the most, playing in the pool and having new adventures and pausing, now and then, for some quiet time in a deck chair for the ankles which seem to be remembering.

David, well mostly Dave, has lived up to his name which means Beloved in Hebrew, though I didn’t know that then.

He, and Kelly and the girls, are equal parts inspiration and motivation in my life.

They call me, constantly, back to the best in me.

Back to my hopes for the world.

We all have a lot of hoping to do, these days.

And a lot of work, as well.

We won’t do it all the same way and that’s ok. It seems to me, though, that the reminder of this season is that we are hoping for Peace and Light.

In a few short days, this boat is going to dock and it will be time to join the herd of souls racing back to the real world and remember that, while hoping is important, acting is too.

It’s time to bring Light and Hope to the darkness in our tiny corners of the world. There are lots of things we can’t fix. And quite a few that we can.

I’ll be starting with chemo soup for a friend. And help for a whole bunch of huge, fabulous dogs. And art as a signpost to Love. What will you choose?