The First List of the First Day of the New Year in the New Decade

First read text message from: My brother (“Happy New Year!”)
First food I ate: Red lentils
First drink: Coffee
First person I spoke with: Nicole
First thing I said: Good morning
First sent email: to my MIL Nancy
First song I heard from start to finish: “Be Without You” by Mary J.
First breakfast: Egg and cheddar and caramelized onions on a roll at Sylvester’s
First referred toddler fight: Over sunglasses
First phone call: To my friend Jen
First purchase: A hodge podge of things from Target: Two organizational boxes; two organization cubes; a bird lamp; a nightlight; and several Christmas candies that the girls grabbed
First unappreciated joke: (while counting birds while bird-watching with the girls): “Ladies, we are Counting Crows.”
First time I apologized unnecessarily: On the way to breakfast, when I realized I left the camera battery charging in the wall and we needed to turn around. I must stop this pesky apologizing insanity.
First playlist: Nicole’s “Today” play list, which is this crazy mix of Shawn Colvin and Dave Matthews Band and Patty Griffin and Counting Crows and more….
First dinner: Asiago pizza with arugula and balsamic
First dessert: Burnt sugar ice cream with homemade hot fudge and chocolate sliver sprinkles

That about covers it. We are now well into 2010. Four days already. The year is zipping by, no? Today starts our annual beginning-of-January food cleanse: For the next week, nothing but veggies and brown rice and fruit shakes and hummus sandwiches. It will be a nice detox from all of that extra holiday sugar. I am not sure if this actually cleanses the body in any real, measurable way, but it certainly does psychologically.

Needless to say, with this cleanse on the horizon, the weekend was a feast of the tasting senses. I went out with a bang. To say I made poor food choices might be an understatement. This is the problem with “Start Monday” diets and such: The time leading up to the start time is usually a very slippery slope into destructive eating and drinking and a period of true excess. It backfires every time at least for me. So in effect the cleanse just undoes the damage of my pre-cleanse binge.

I went out for brunch with friends yesterday. We played a conversational game that I sort of invented: Each person asks a question and the rest can only answer with a yes or no. Afterwards, we can discuss more in depth. The questions were really hard: Would you ever get divorced? Would you leave your spouse if they cheated on you? If you won the lottery would you share money with the people at the table? Do you have a secret that no one at the table knows? Good deep, thoughtful, conversation-provoking questions. It was a great way to start off the new year.

But now it is back to reality. After an extended vacation with Nicole home, she is back at work, and we are back in the city and it is back to life as we usually know it. It is frigid today, which means errands to the post office and food store are going to be challenging. Annoyingly, it is supposed to be cold all week. The girls and I will get cabin fever for sure. I have deemed today comfy pants day: The girls and I will all be wearing thermal pants (me) or stretch pants (the girls). I can say this with certainly: This is the first time since the girls were born that I have worn what can be described as pajamas pants during the day. As a general personal rule, I never wear sweat pants or stretch pants or anything like that because I feel like for me it is yet another slippery slope: One day, stretch pants, the next, I am living in sweatsuits, and wearing shiny sweatsuits for special occasions. But I am going to embrace comfy pants today and try not to feel like a lazy, slobby slob. New year, new leaf and all.

Pictured above, January 1st self portrait. And the girls in all of their cuteness. Madeline started the new year with a great breakfast: Whole wheat pancakes with Oreos and white chocolate chips. And the house, in the beautiful snow. I miss it already.