New Year's Day.

Well, my highlight from last week was definitely the New Year’s Eve party at my apartment. It was a blast to say the least. I had made dinner reservations for two people and I had resigned myself to the fact that I’ll be going to the restaurant alone, but at the very last minute, a friend who just got back from a family cruise to Mexico asked me if the offer still stood and it did. So she joined me for dinner. Anna is someone I’ve known since my time at Drake. She’s part of the young adults group and both love good food so it was nice to have another foodie join me. The only reservation I could snag was 5PM which actually worked out perfectly for me because after dinner, I needed to get some stuff done prior to my guests arriving. So, dinner was a five course meal and I had asked Anna if she would be open to splitting her meal with me and by doing that, we both would be able to try different meals. She was open to it and we both had a jolly good time with the meal. Anna had never been to the restaurant before and was most impressed by it. After dinner, we came back to my apartment and she sat around while I got things ready for the party.

I told my friends to come at 9PM or earlier if they wanted to because I’ll already be in my apartment and most of them started arriving at around 8:45PM. Now, I personally thought that at the most five people would be coming, but unbeknownst to me, those who did not reply the invite came and that was fine. So, all in all I had roughly twelve people in my apartment and we all had a blast. I had more than enough food and some of them brought extra alcoholic beverages which made the party even more fun. The entertainment for the evening was provided by Delaney (Matt and Angie’s one year old daughter), and I made the comment that not one of my guests would have guessed that a one year old would be entertaining all of us. She has grown so much since I last saw her and is a cutie pie. I’m so happy that Matt and Angie brought her. Those who thought they were going to just pop by ended up staying longer than expected. By the time midnight came around there were roughly eight people and we all rang in the New Year with some champagne.

Here’s one of the funniest parts of the night. Because genetically my body takes a longer time to break down alcohol, I turn red really fast even after drinking one or two alcoholic beverages so after a couple of drinks, some of my friends thought it would be hilarious to get me all liquored up and drunk so they started doing shots with me. Unbeknownst to them, I know my limit and no one can get me to go beyond my limit. So, after a couple of shots and drinking different mix drinks over the course of the night, I was feeling the effects of the alcohol and told them that I’m done with drinking anymore shots or alcohol. They were rather disappointed that I would not go beyond my limit, and I explained to them that I would be working the very next day at 2PM and the last thing I wanted to do was have a huge hangover. All of us stayed up till 4:30AM and that was when they all left my apartment. Yeah, I too could not believe I lasted that long. I decided to clean up the stuff the next morning because I needed my sleep/rest.

I finally got up at 10AM and started cleaning up and that did not take long at all. Once I showered and changed, I was ready for some food in my stomach. The weather was cold so I was craving a nice bowl of pho and was keeping my fingers crossed that my Vietnamese restaurant would be open – it was. I knew exactly what I wanted to order. One of the regular wait staff approached me and informed me that she had a note from a group of Malaysians but she left it at home. A couple of weeks ago, when I was at the restaurant, I saw this group of four Asians having a meal and I gathered they were Malaysians but did not know for sure until I heard them speak. I was right. When it came time for me to pay for my meal, I told the waiter that I would be paying for their meal – I’ve done this before. So I did that and left not thinking twice about my deed. We all have heard of the virtue of paying forward and that’s exactly what happened because I was informed by my waiter on New Year’s Day that the group of Malaysians were surprised that someone paid for their meal and decided to pay for someone else’s meal! How cool is that? I can’t wait to go back to the restaurant and read the note they left me. What a great way to start the New Year! That news definitely got me in the proper frame of mind for my work at the Westminster. Some of the residents were out with their family on New Year’s Day and those who were there pretty much watched the television. It was definitely a pretty uneventful day for all.

On Saturday after work, I hung out with Sr. Carola who was in town and would be headed up to MN for a month of classes. She had a couple of computer and cell phone questions for me and I helped her out with that. We got to catch up with one another and she told me how her retreat went. It sounds like the location in Illinois is ideal for a short mini retreat. I need to check into it. After we got the computer and cell phone stuff taken care of, we had dinner at Flying Mango – a Cajun and Barbeque joint. The food was good. Carola had invited me to join her at the musical, “Iowa Caucus” and the reviews were really good. I was excited about it and was not disappointed one bit. It was a fun, well choreographed musical and all the actors and actresses did a very good job.

That’s pretty much it with regards to all the different festivities that took place over the week. In many ways, it’ll be nice to have a regular not too eventful week but you just never know what’s going to happen during the week. I just have to brace myself for whatever may come my way.