HAPPY NEW YEAR 2019

A photography friend of mine has set a tradition of taking a sunrise picture each New Year's morning for the last several years. Today's was really pretty as the sun tried it's best to push through the clouds.

Got up at 8am to put the 12 pound pork shoulder in the oven to cook for 4 hours.
I got chores done and had a quick cup of coffee and a protein bar and went to Walmart to get some collard greens for today's lunch. On the way I saw the power company still working on the power problems and some of the red lights were still not working. Daughter said their power didn't come on until 11:30 last night. They had the road closed where they were working but I couldn't see what they were working on around a curve in the road.
There were no fresh collard greens anywhere to be found so I came home with some frozen ones that will have to do this year. Apparently there is a shortage of collard greens this year for some reason.
I came home to find IR here with hubbie while daughter had basketball practice. I worked all morning in the kitchen getting blackeyed peas, collard greens, corn bread and an apple crumb cake made for our traditional New Year's Day lunch.

This is the long standing southern traditions and what each thing means.

Re is from Ohio and she always had sauerkraut ,mashed potatoes and sausage so she brought mashed potatoes and sauerkraut over to go with lunch so we had all the northern and southern bases covered.

Everyone made it today except #1 son who was working on one of the few non -rainy days.
The only ones of us who made it until midnight was Re's family. #2 son and Tif worked until 8:00 delivering mail so they went to bed when they got home, #1 son had to get up and go to work and g-son had wrestling practice at 8am so they went to bed as soon as they got home from here last night, daughter and son-in-love went to bed when they got home last night around 9 because their power was still out and hubbie and I fell asleep but the neighbor's fireworks woke me up so I actually was awake at midnight but went right back to sleep.
Today is a very nice warm mid 60's day and it is nice to be outside in shirt sleeves today. The kids all enjoyed playing outside after lunch .

After everyone left I did more un-decorating while hubbie worked on getting my new chicken coup set up out in the garden .
I did chores after we hauled another load of containers back to the storage shed.
On this New Years Day the temperature has been more like spring than winter.

The monthly rain totals for last year are out and every month the rain totals were above normal.

We watched the news then I got all the ornaments off all the trees and got most of the decorations down. #1 son came up after some left overs and then hubbie helped get the trees all put away and change out all the rugs and furniture and bed covers . Sad to see the bright decorations gone for another year but it does seem like it has been a long Christmas season this year.
We worked until 9:30 then we both took a short break before bedtime to get back on track on an early schedule tomorrow morning. Hubbie watched TV and I wrote my blog post. Still no internet .
Thankful for the blessings of this day and looking forward to what God has in store for me and my family in the new year.
God Bless, Good Night and Happy New Year.