New Year's celebrations around the world

Tired of the same old ball dropping, champagne toast, auld lang syne at midnight? Try one of these new year's traditions from around the world.

Thai celebration: The New Year celebrations start by people chasing each other down the street with buckets of water. This is also a day for good deeds and karama-polishing acts.

Swedish celebration: Go to church, go to smorgasbords and drink spicy glogg.

Denmark: Throw broken dishes at your friend's doors. Old dishes are saved year around to throw them at the homes where their friends live on New Years Eve. Many broken dishes were a symbol that you have many friends.

Portugese and Spanish celebrations: pick and eat twelve grapes from a bunch as the clock strikes twelve on New Year's Eve. This is done to ensure twelve happy months in the coming year. Sometimes the grapes are washed down with wine.

Netherlands: burn your Christmas tree in a street bonfire.

Japanese celebration: Hang a rope of straw across the front of your house to keep out evil spirits, the straw stands for happiness and good luck. When the New Year begins, the Japanese people begin to laugh, and this is supposed to bring them good luck in the New Year.

Korean: on New Year's day wear new clothing. This symbolizes a fresh beginning.

Celebrating the New Year

How it all began......

The celebration of the new year is the oldest of all holidays. It was first observed in ancient Babylon about 4000 years ago. In the years around 2000 BC, the Babylonian New Year began with the first New Moon (actually the first visible cresent) after the Vernal Equinox (first day of spring). The Babylonian new year celebration lasted for eleven days!

The beginning of spring is a logical time to start a new year. It is the season of rebirth, of planting new crops, and of blossoming. January 1, on the other hand, has no astronomical nor agricultural significance. It is purely arbitrary.

January 1st officially became the first day of a new year in 46 B.C. when Julius Caesar established the Julian Calendar.

The tradition of New Year's resolutions also started with the ancient Babylonians. The early Babylonian's resolution was to return borrowed farm equipment in order to start the new year off with a clean slate.

Christmas Cookie Exchange

This holiday season saw our 7th annual Christmas cookie exchange.

These are all that are left!

24 women

1728 cookies

24 gifts exchanged

An evening of festivities with good friends, old and new.

Two for Tuesday

tis the season for snowman jokes.

And the survey says.......

Thanks to all who took the survey and helped with
my research on Beauty and the American Woman.
There were over 200 respondents.
The age of the respondents ranged from 18 to 78.
The results were significant to the research.
As promised, here are the results.

Looking for a good book?

For all you readers out there!
I came across a cool site.
Enter a book you like and the site will analyze their database of real readers' favorite books (over 20,000 and growing) to suggest what you could read next.
You can register and list your own favorites as well.

What Should I Read Next?

Happy Lazy Saturday

Lazy: averse or disinclined to work, activity, or exertion; indolent.









You can't teach people to be lazy, either they have it or they don't
Dagwood Bumstead

This holiday season give the gift of love.......

and it's not jewelry!













Heifer is a wonderful organization that helps people throughout the world by creating a chain of giving that can touch thousands of lives.Their mission is to work with communities around the world to end hunger and poverty and care for the earth.

My friend Richard is trying to raise enough funding to buy a Heifer International Ark. In just over a week he is at 38% of his goal. If you can find it in your heart to contribute even $5.00, every dollar helps.

An Ark is an extraordinary gift and an opportunity to help change the world. You can contribute toward ducks, geese, chicks, bees, trees, or even a llama or two.

Click HERE and see how easy it is to make difference.

Thanks!

Two Optical Illusions for Tuesday

Focus on the image below
Stare at the 4 dots in the middle for 30 seconds.
Then look at up at the ceiling (blank space).
What do you see?















Stare at the black dot in the circle below for at least a minute.
What happens to the gray fog around it?

Body Painting

As with the fish faces below, very cool body painting.

Sleepy head wakes up

Kate, Honey Bear, and Grover

Hello Fish Face!

If today were a fish, I'd throw it back!

How many people can you see?

Click on picture to enlarge.
(There are nine, did you find them all?)

Two for Tuesday

Tis the season!
so I am sharing two gift ideas that have been huge hits in this house.

Apple to Apples
Excellent game for crowds of 3-30.
Ages 10 and up.
Has fast become a family favorite.
Around $25.00
There is a junior edition too.
















RCA Small Wonder Video Recorder
Records up to 30 minutes of video
Couldn't be easier to use or download.
Small enough to throw in a pocket or purse.
Takes two AA batteries and no tapes to hassle with.
Around $120.00








Both can be found at Amazon.com

Stumble Upon

Stumble Upon is a cool add on for browsers.
(Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer browsers)
Set up an account and a whole world of random websites
is instantly at your fingertips.

You set up your account according to your interests.
Then click on the "stumble" button and it brings you to different
websites of interest. Here are a couple of fun ones it brought me to!

Draw your own picasso head!

Click here to see mine and make your own.

Don't have an iPod?

No worries.

Check out blogmusik.

The virtual iPod is here

Fa la la la la

It's early this year but the tree is up!
What better time than when the family is all together.
Merry, merry!

What to do after a long day among evil shoppers?

Ok, that is a slight exaggeration but really, people who were out there shopping, were NOT happy today! it is the busiest shopping day in the U.S. (called Black Friday) and people come out in hordes. There are lots of bargains and to me, it is always one of the funnest days to go shopping!
But not to all.
Pushy, grumpy ladies were plentiful today.
They wanted THEIR bargains!
And they didn't mind ramming their carts into you to get them.
Unfortunately not all stores were forthcoming with enough merchandise (or shopping carts) to go around.
I was patiently waiting for a shopping cart at Target and (may I state) I was first in line.
A nice gentleman handed me a cart and one of those pushy ladies tried to take it from me.
I explained I'd been waiting.
She snarled "SO WAS I" and then gave me the glaring, evil eye, saying "MERRY Christmas" while walking away.
It didn't sound like she meant it.
Geesh.
Must be her (bitchy) little feet were tired or her (cranky) back ached.
I would have given her the cart had I known how desperate she was.
Oh well. At least for us, presents were bought and bargains found.
Now my (non bitchy) little feet are tired and it is on to spa and movie night.
Home pedicures and Audrey Hepburn movies.
Breakfast at Tiffanys, Roman Holiday, and Sabrina.
Ahhhhh, bliss.


















Hope you all had a good day!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Turkey Tip #1

When roasting a bird on the grill, do not leave it.
Not for a second.
Not for a minute
Especially not for 10 minutes.
Even if the grill is off.
Because things can happen.
Like an overflow of turkey juice
that can quickly light on fire
and your delicious Thanksgiving bird will not look like this.
















It will look like this!

Two Shih Tzu Tuesday

Sarah has come to visit.

Bailey has a playmate for the next month.

Congrats Zachary!

For making the JV highschool basketball team.
30+ tried out, 12 made it.
You worked hard to make it happen!
We'll be cheering for #24.

LEGo MAN

One of my favorite places to shop in the city is FAO Schwartz.
There is so much to see and do there!
Last night I spent some time in Legoland.
The statues below are all life size reproductions.
Each is built with legos (and legos and legos!)
They started with one brick and went up from there.
no forms were used.
Sean Kenney is the brick artist on the statues below.



































































This is part of a a lego city in FAO Schwartz.
The farther back you stand, the better you can see the face of the artist on top of the red building. Click the LEGo MAN link at the top of this post to see additional work he's done.

Two for Tuesday

I am back in the city (woo hoo!) and spent the day at the Society of Illustrators. It was a day spent with lots of warm, funny, and talented people.

Barry Blitt was a highlight. His illustrations have appeared on the covers of the New Yorker, graced pages of the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, and Entertainment Weekly. He has also illustrated several children's books. He has the kind of (strange) humor I love.

Here are two of his New Yorker covers for Two for Tuesday.

Your name in Japanese

Lisa
(pronounced "RIISA")

click on the title link above to see yours.

Corner Plot

NYC is always full of interesting outdoor art thanks to the Public Art Fund, the leading presenter of artists' projects. For 25 years the PAF has been bringing artworks outside the traditional context of museums and galleries, letting the public encounter the art of our time.

This installation was on the southeast corner of Central Park, on 5th avenue.
















The sculpture resembles the white brick apartment that stands on the opposite corner across 5th avenue. Although it is in pristine condition the structure seems to have sunk in the ground or slowly surfaced like an archeological relict. Through the building's windows, you can see an interior view of everyday objects extending several feet below street level.


















The artist is Sara Sze.
If you're interested, you can view a slide show of the process here.

Two for Tuesday

A Bejeweled Spiderweb
This post is for spiderwoman Kate whose love/hate relationship with spiders this past summer made it impossible for me to pass this by without thinking of her and sharing this photo!









(The Bergdorf Goodman window display in NYC. Produced by Douglas Little for the November 2006 issue of House and Garden )




A Bejeweled Pond
Such lovely early morning colors and tones.










(fall foliage Central Park)

More color in Central Park

It isn't just the leaves that are colorful!

Fall in Central Park

Our fall in Upstate NY is almost over
but down here it has just begun.














(Can't get enough of this fall color!)

NYC!

I am in the city until Monday and loving every minute of it.
















We took a little walk into Brooklyn for dinner.
Caught the sunset and this was the view off the Brooklyn Bridge.

Two for Tuesday

Pumpkin carving
by RMZ 2004


Two halloween jokes:

Do zombies eat popcorn with their fingers?
No, they eat the fingers separately.

Why do mummies have trouble keeping friends?
They're so wrapped up in themselves.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Letting go of the rice...

I first read this story almost two years ago when Richard sent it out in an email. I held onto it because I thought it taught a good lesson. Today, as I was cleaning up my email, I read it again and decided to post it.






Indians in South America use a simple but ingenious hand-made trap to catch monkeys. They cut a small hole into the side of a coconut, scrape out the interior, and lash the coconut shell to a tree with leather cord or vine. They place a small amount of rice in the coconut as bait and leave the trap over night. A monkey comes swinging along, spies the rice and reaches into the coconut to grab it. The trick to this trap is the size of the hole. The monkey can get his hand in, but once he grabs the rice, his fist will not go back through the opening. He is trapped. Freedom appears to be very simple. If the monkey would only let go of the rice, he could remove his hand. But, like many of us, when we have our hands on something we are familiar with, it is very hard to let go. In the jungles of South America if the trapper fails to return to check his trap, as they sometimes do, monkeys have been known to starve to death, clinging to the rice. Fortunately, people are smarter than monkeys most of the time.

A D.I.Y. Vase

I love vases, and this one is pretty clever.














deFlower Vase.

deFlower Vase is a simple way to add beauty and fragrance to any household, while also making it inherently dirty. The coloration of the glass is actually the work of multi-colored condoms wrapped over everyday juice glasses.
By Alexander Reh