We spent a quiet New Year's Day after a really nice evening with friends Bill and Diane Rossi and Don and Diane Sherwood. Bill and Fred had gone to St. Johnsbury on Thursday to do errands, one of which was to go to the meat market. Fred really liked the ham Marie served on Christmas Eve and so he went to R & J Meats to get one like it. How he happened to come home with pot roast I'm really not sure . . . like Diane says, we should know not to send the two of them to do errands together. However, it turned out perfectly because the roast was really good and Don was kind enough to say it was a favorite of his. Bill's mom, Alba, sent us some very special Italian cookies that were perfect to finish off the meal.

As some of you know, Bill does not stay anywhere past 9 o'clock because 9:30 is his bed time, but he made it until 10 o'clock last night! Don came on the condition he wouldn't have to stay up until midnight . . . so much for rowdy partying. I guess none of us watched the ball drop - I know we didn't. I thought I heard fireworks around 11 o'clock, but I couldn't be sure and I was too tired to get up to see what was going on and Fred was already asleep.

Today has been in the 40's and the snow melted a bit. It is still about 42 outside my window, but I think we may get colder weather tomorrow. I measured 9.5 in. of snow on the ground early this morning, and just a trace of new precipitation. It's our "January thaw," I guess. Or a result of climate change. Maybe this is what our winters are going to be like from now on. All the snow will be south of us and we'll bask in spring-like temperatures. There may be some sunshine for a while tomorrow.

The Christmas decorations will all come down tomorrow. I normally would have taken everything down today and put it all away, but I had some other things I needed to catch up on so didn't get to it. I didn't have a lot of decorations up this year - wreaths and a few lights was all.

Those of you who are familiar with the Cabot Chronicle may be interested to know it may have to cease publication unless they can find a way for the Cabot Coalition to continue. It seems the two large grants the Coalition had have run out and now they need to fund their activities some other way. They are looking for volunteer help and ideas on how they can keep going. The Coalition provides services for Cabot youths as well as the monthly newspaper.

Did you see in the Caledonian the other day that Gilman Housing Trust is looking at the possibility of building a 40-unit housing complex on 13 acres of land on Walden Hill in Danville. The report was that it would be a mix of senior, low income and assisted living units and probably wouldn't begin until 2013. Perhaps the Rt. 2 work will be done by then. It will be interesting to see if it actually happens.

Well, we're launched into 2011. Let's hope this is an exceptional year - that gas prices go down instead of up, there are fewer homeless and hungry, more jobs, cell service in our area, good ski and snowmobile weather when and where it's supposed to happen and fewer natural disasters where they're not supposed to happen, and that all the men and women serving overseas get to come home real soon. It would also be nice if the legislators in Washington decide not to vote nice pay raises for themselves and instead dig in with common sense to work together on behalf of the nation as a whole. In my book, that would be a HAPPY NEW YEAR!