1.  It’s New Year’s Eve and let me tell you we’re whooping it up here.

2.  We watched The Witches on HBO Max. Man, Roald Dahl is a wild dude.

3.  We had honey garlic chicken with potatoes and Brussels sprouts.

4.  We watched The Family Stone – we laughed, we cried, we screamed “IT’S REGINA!” when the younger sister came onscreen. Good times.

5.  We caught the end of Miley Cyrus’ performance and I’m not ashamed to say she kinda nailed it.

6.  Crazy thing is I was distracted when they changed the channel and when I glanced up the first thought that popped into my head was “Blondie?!”

7.  I’m also mesmerized by Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen doing shots on tv.

8.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan, I just know what a mistake it would be to stream me live while I’m boozing it up.

9.  Entertaining. But a mistake.

10.  Okay, the dramatic reading of Goodnight 2020 is a riot.

11.  Watching these guys try to talk to people over Zoom or whatever is giving me angst.

12.  I hate Zoom. Maybe if we normalized raising hands as adults talking on those things wouldn’t be so anxiety producing.

13.  Or maybe nothing will help since I’m not great about phone calls to begin with.

14.  They’ve been talking about 2020 things we’re more than ready to pitch. I’ve got a few of those.

15.  TP and sanitizer hoarders. Buy what you need, let the rest be.

16.  People who invade my personal space. Seriously, if you loom in over me to grab ground beef instead of waiting the thirty seconds it takes me to pick one up and move I cannot predict how I’ll react.

17.  Crazy anxiety laced dreams.

18.  An overloaded postal system that means it’s 50/50 whether you’ll get your prescription on time.

19.  Masks worn below the nose or pulled down under the chin. Bless.

20.  Five little requests, that’s not so unreasonable now.

21.  If this were a regular year people might be asking so what’s your new year’s resolution? I normally blow off this question but let’s give it a whack.

22.  We will dig in and finish this race. We’re all tired of isolating, of telling our kids no when they just want to see their friends, but now that vaccines are finally rolling out we’re committed to doing what we can to prevent the spread.

23.  I’ll stick with this plan to stop staying up until 2am because I’m super cranky pants when I try to run on six hours of sleep.

24.  I’ll keep up the mostly healthy home cooking with a reasonable dose of cheesy chips and salsa in there.

25.  I’ll learn to honor when I’m burned out with a real chance to reset.

26.  Four little(ish) resolutions, that seems like plenty.

27.  We’ve been enjoying the NYE musical acts and boy, talk about range.

28.  En Vogue was AMAZING. Turns out they’re still performing which explains how their vocals are so tight.

29.  Megan Thee Stallion dropped some twerking with her song “Body.”

30.  In an interesting programming choice Megan was followed by Columbian singer Maluma.

31.  The flashback to a 1984 GoGo’s performance was a fantastic riot of great music and ’80s dress/dance moves.

32.  Miley Cyrus rolled back around at 1am – or maybe they reran a portion of her earlier performance, I’m getting a little punchy, it could be either – and we got another look at her mashup of classic rock songs.

33.  So here we are, waking up to a Brand New Year Rising from the Ashes of 2020’s Dumpster Fire™.

34.  Let’s start by making a promise to one another: I won’t sneeze in your face if you won’t cough in mine and we’ll all agree to stay home altogether if we don’t feel well.

35.  I’ll commit to grace – grace for myself, grace for others, grace under pressure when it’s not easy to give.

36.  Then I’ll show myself grace for the times I blow it because we all know that’s inevitable.

37.  I’m keeping my expectations realistic. I’m not imagining a 2021 where covid19 disappears and we’re bar hopping by March. I think people expecting to burn their masks this spring are bound to be disappointed.

38.  I’m hoping to see steady (even minuscule is fine) improvements.

39.  Leadership at the national level that prioritizes health and personal responsibility will set a new tone. Task forces with experts in the field will change the narrative.

40.  It might not change overnight but 2021 is bound to bring the better.