Happy New Year and all the best for 2011

Good evening,

It’s 9:40 p.m. on New Year’s Eve.  I hope everybody is out doing something wonderful right now, spending time with friends and family, eating something sinfully delicious and chocolatey, and having a drink or two to bid good-bye to 2010 and welcome 2011 with open arms and hearts.

To 2010:  thanks for everything you’ve given me, and for some of what you’ve taken away, after all, that’s just life.  Thanks for the laughter and the tears, the successes, the surprises and the difficult moments that make us tougher.  And those moments that make us glad to be alive and thankful for all we have.

I couldn’t have summed it better than Neil Gaiman did, so read below, and know that these words reflect what’s in my heart.

“I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.  May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself”.

From me to you … have a Happy New Year and all the best for 2011.  May it find us all creating … and quilting … and drawing … and making new friends.

Now I will go and text my kids a Happy New Year, and prepare to hug them really tight when I see them next.

Thanks for being a part of my life.

Ana