I really need to get off my duff and get this house clean...or at least clean enough. I cannot bring myself to welcome the new year with a totally filthy house -- partially maybe, but not totally. Housecleaning...I challenge anyone to top that for New Year's Eve excitement.

The weather was GORGEOUS today -- very spring-like. We rode the mares for the first time in a few weeks. The ground was still wet, as it has been for weeks now, but at least not soupy -- at least not in most places. Sugar was spunky but relatively well-behaved. Odessa on the other hand, was hot as a firecracker and as crotchety as a old bear just awakened from its winter hibernation. Both mares had evidently spent a good portion of their time lately wallowing in the overabundance of mud and it took FOREVER to just get the topmost layer of mud off enough to make them clean enough to saddle up. I can remember a time in Odessa's life when she considered herself far too classy to roll in mud -- seems we have turned the formerly classy miss into a common hayseed like the rest of us.

All my boring, pointless rambling aside...whether you plan on greeting the New Year in a drunken stupor or quietly enjoying friends and family, whether sleeping through it peacefully or frantically cleaning house, whether annoying neighbors with fireworks, or eating sushi and watching DVDs -- here's wishing the best to all my faithful friends and infrequent visitors here at Mindsay, and hoping the transition from 2004 to 2005 finds you where you most love to be, and with those whom you most love to be with. Happy New Year, one and all!