New Year's Eve check in -- 11:25 p.m.

It is absolutely pouring down rain and almost sixty degrees outside, too warm for either my bathrobe or my fleecy slippers. That is an unusual occurrence in this house, which keeps to the approximate temperature of a meat locker.

Potty runs for Dobby and Zuzu so far: 2, fortunately both times before the heavens opened and water came spilling forth as if we're preparing for an all-new flood.

Movies: 1, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, as mentioned before. Just finished it and the verdict on it is that it was long on special effects and short on plot. I am still trying to figure out how Balthazar, who is typically known as one of the Magi who visited Baby Jesus and Veronica, who is believed to have offered Jesus a linen cloth upon which to wipe his face during his Passion, got messed up with Morgan Le Fay and Merlin. Because Arthurian legend, of which I am passably familiar -- or at least always thought I was -- featured no characters from the life of Christ. So I'm confused.

Tomorrow I'm cooking the final turkey dinner of this holiday season and we had an amusing contretemps earlier this evening when I was putting together the dough for the cloverleaf rolls I intend to serve with our meal. I had all my ingredients mapped out and ready to go for the recipe -- flour, yeast, butter, water, sugar, salt and eggs -- and everything was going really well until I got to the "eggs" part of my list. As it turned out, one of my darling daughters had used the last two eggs in the carton to make a protein-rich masque for her hair today, leaving me with nothing but a loud shriek: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

My husband, who is very fond of homemade dinner rolls, betook himself to the grocery store (Marsh is open all night and don't you feel sorry for their employees?) while Aisling, the culprit, and I ironed out a treaty which stated that she shall not use food items for her beauty treatments unless she ASKS ME FIRST.

I've been typing for eleven minutes, so it's now eleven-thirty-six and counting, so let me take this next few seconds of flying fingers to say how very, very pleased I am to be bidding 2010 goodbye. There have been some high points in this year, I know there have, although I'm hard pressed to remember them right at this particular moment. The trip to Stratford was successful, and I'm very thankful for that. We also got our new(er) van, Penny, which was a huge blessing. But you know? I am really, really sick of the recession and worrying about money all the time.

So here's for a more positive and prosperous 2011. I am ready for it.

In twenty more minutes.