Lights

Morton Arboretum's Illumination show is totally worth it. If you didn't make it this year, you should plan to go next year. 

Pretty lights and a few special interactive bits (hug a tree, sing to a tree), plus enough big fire drums along the trail to keep you from freezing.  Our favorite bit was probably the light show on the hill that was choreographed to classical pieces. 

Magical.

Happy New Year

the customary New Years brunch in the Stewart/Phillips household.
homemade danish puff pastry, eggs, sausage, orange juice, tea or coffee.

I love New Years. My husband and I are both patently bad at the partying part of New Year's Eve, but I love the fresh feeling of a new year. It's a time to begin again. To cuddle into the couch and look through the last year's worth of magazines to figure out what needs to be kept and what needs to be recycled. To make plans and dream about what the new year will bring.

And this year, I have decided to give up on resolutions and have traded them in for a list of projects that I hope to complete in 2011. I'm not likely to change any of my entrenched bad behavior, but I do like to check tasks off lists. So I'm hoping that I really will re-paint the dining room and swap out a few light fixtures in the house and come up with a fabric design and finally use the beautiful felt I've had in storage for two years in 2011.

I've already cleaned my office and kept it clean for a whole week. So, I think there's hope.

Happy New Year!