a new year in new york

After docking back in Lower Manhattan after our Staten Island Ferry ride, we decided that, heck, we're already halfway there...why not head up to Times Square for the famous New Year's celebrations? The NYPD were expecting nearly a million people to crowd through those Midtown city blocks, so what difference did three more make? And so we hopped on the train, waded through the hoards of directionally challenged and subway-confused tourists and joined the fun...

...Okay, so that's not exactly true. In reality the last thing any of us felt up to doing last night was dealing with the party-hardy intoxicated masses. We actually just went home where we spent the evening nursing head colds and making headway on a pile of ironing while we watched the ball drop from the warm comfort of our living room.

We did cook a small Walk Around dinner, the tradition of eating sweets and appetizers for dinner introduced to our little family by Blake's people. We ate deviled eggs, BBQ'd meatballs, chips and salsa, truffles, and Ritz cracker bruschetta on our festive red square plates.

I borrowed the bruschetta recipe, which was fantastically easy, from the back of the Ritz cracker box. And because it was so delicious (and because I'm going to assume that since Nabisco is making it public, they won't mind if I post it here), I'm going to share it with you all:

Ritz Cracker Bruschetta
1 cup chopped plum tomatoes
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup chopped green onions
1 tbsp house Italian dressing
2 tbsp shredded Parmesan cheese
36 Ritz crackers

Preheat oven to 400 F. Mix tomatoes, cheese, onions, and dressing. Spoon 2 tsp of the tomato mixture onto each cracker; sprinkle with cheese. Place on a baking sheet. Bake 8 -10 minutes or until cheese is melted. Serve warm.

While we waited to see how loud the ringing in of a new year would be in Brooklyn, Blake and I talked briefly about our goals for 2008. We decided that, jointly, our top priority for the year would be to

• spend less so we can save more. Which, seeing as we're already pinching pennies so hard that the dirty, abandoned loose change I see glistening on the streets actually looks tempting, will certainly require a full measure of creativity. But, I'm sure it's nothing we can't handle.
  

I've also come up with a few personal goals. This year I'd like to

• keep less. Which basically translates to toss my remaining pack-rattish tendencies out the window and start using up my rather large collection of travel-sized toiletries because, for crying out loud, we live in a small Brooklyn apartment and have no room for clutter.
  
• just do it. Meaning, that if I think up some project to do, I should just get down and do it instead of spending precious time dawdling and only thinking about doing it. And
• write pieces with the intent to publish. I'd like to say that my goal is to just "get published," but I've made that goal in the past and I've realized that I need a starting point first.

Not an extravagant or lofty list of resolutions, but they'll require that I make a few changes which, isn't that the point of turning over the new year's leaf?

And now it's 2008 (I know - already?!). The Times Square ball dropped, Blake kissed me at the stroke of midnight shortly after we sipped from our glasses of sparkling French pink lemonade, and we went to bed amid the remarkably quiet sounds of celebrations coming from the streets below us. I don't know about you, but I'm certainly looking forward to what the new year has to offer.