Open Thread – Happy 2011!
Happy 2011 to all! Welcome to a new year of possibilities, promise and hope. If this one doesn’t work out well, don’t worry because there’s another one coming in 365 days.
Stay safe wherever you are, especially if you are navigating the icy roads in Anchorage tonight.
May your new year be filled with joy, good work, success, and love.
Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man. ~Benjamin Franklin
Thank you, AKM! May your 2011 be filled with family, love, friends, Buf, and … your mud/hushpups! AND to everyone in the Mudflats Family all over the world – Best Wishes for 2011!
I’m looking forward to a Miller-free year!
Or at the very least, Miller-Lite!
Happy 1/1/11 everyone! (It’s GOTTA be a good one with numbers like that!)
Happy New Year to mudpups everywhere from Colorado; cold, snowy (now it comes, as it’s been missing since early October, beginning of snow season) but bright with anticipation. Peace and health to all-
In the Southwest for a warm New Year’s – Ha – and my warm clothes are in Anchorage…oh, well.
Happy Happy New Year to all.
Thanks to AKM for all the times you can break it down, speak your mind and keep perspective – may your writing grow as you grow – a good mind with good thoughts.
WfAK
Happy New Year, Akm and mudpups everywhere! Stay safe and have fun
…let each new year find you a better (HU) man…
yup, working on it!
Best wishes to AKM and all who visit here !
Happy New Year to all – have a safe night and a blessed year (o:
Hugs, love and thank-you to mudpuppies, extra goes to mudpupmama AKM for creating the puddle xxxxxxooooooo
Happy New Year to all….this past year was better than last… the coming year will be better still…
Happy New Year, 1-1-11 to AKM and mudpups everywhere!
oh and my Birthday on 1/1/11 toooo
Will you be 1 ?
happy birthday and happy new year! were you the first baby of the year?
Happy New Year to AKM and all mud & hush-pups! Hope the coming year treats you better than the last.
happy New Years everyone.
and a happy birthday to NOLA.
I’m at peace with my vices and I don’t think I could find a better man than my husband (that’s kinda why I married him). So the new year doesn’t have to find a man for me, better or worse. Thanks anyway, Ben!
Happy New Year to all, stay safe, stay well, stay warm.
Happy New Year to all.
Happy birthday to NOLA.
I have been super sick for the past two weeks so unable to join the holiday postings. Couldn’t even help with Colleen and Joseph’s kennel (had a hard enough time dealing with my own pups in subzero weather). I am so proud of them anyway. But I think I am on the mend and should be back here more often. I am working on co-authoring a book and have to put my writing efforts towards that right now. I have missed all of you. Hope your holidays were merry…
Take care and get well, LMD. And Happy New Year!
Feel better. Good luck with the book, will it be canine related? Happy New Year
Good to see you posting! I’m wishing you a very healthy new year for you and all your pups.
(((LoveMD))) take care little pup.
be well ‘Love’. you sound like you might have caught a hold of that ‘ weird sh*t my doctor refers to. (meaning, i suppose, that he don’t know what the heck it is.) take care lady.
Happy New Year AKM and to all the Mudpups out there where ever you are!! 2011 is going to be great!!!
Happy New Year and let there be Peace on Earth. We can wish can’t we?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b7qaSxuZUg
An Irish toast:
May the lilt of Irish laughter
Lighten every load.
May the mist of Irish magic
shorten every road,
And may your friends remember
The favours you are owed!
Wishing all mudpups everywhere a happy and healthy 2011!
My favorite Irish blessing:
May those that love us, love us.
And those that don’t love us,
May God turn their hearts.
And if He doesn’t turn their hearts,
May He turn their ankles,
So we may know them by their limping.
May we all be surrounded by the love of ‘those that love us’!
LOL!
I hope I don’t see any limpers in my future! Thanks for my first laugh of the New Year.
Made me laugh, thanks and happy new year to all o’ y’all.
Very nice!
…Hey, Irish Girl, I miss ya!
I’m back in Ireland having celebrated Christmas and the New Year in Australia. I’m fairly exhausted after an 8 hour flight from Sydney to Bangkok, followed by a 12 hour flight to London, then a 3 hour stopover in Heathrow and finally a flight back to Dublin! It’s good to be finally home.
Wishing everyone a belated happy new year.
Shortly before midnight here. Safe in bed with the cats. May your new year bring you peace, joy and love.
Happy New Year !!!!!!!!
Here we go , together – 2011 !!!
Happy New Year, neighbor!
Happy New Year from the east coast, everyone! Here’s to another year together!
(((((((((HUGS you all)))))))))))
A very happy New Year to all my wonderful friends from the Mudflats! Last year was a rough one with some ups and downs – fortunately the ups were more often, so I’m counting my blessings!
We had a lovely white Christmas with several inches of snow and single digit temperature, and now we are in the 60s with pelting rain and tornadoes bouncing around this part of the country. Sadly, there have been a number of deaths already and the bad weather will be with us at least another day, so please keep this region in your prayers.
Best wishes to all for a healthy and prosperous (and Palin-free) New Year!
Happy New Year all — 1/1/11
We will have an exciting year with the new crop of campaigners announcing & hitting the trail to take down President Obama. It will take all our strength (and mudpuppy support) to keep from cracking up as they attempt to “one-up” by ripping into each other.
“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.” Edith Lovejoy Pierce (1904)
Posted this under the last Indigo Girls entry, but wanted to repeat it in case some have just come online. Hope they played “Closer to Fine,” a song our entire family loves that our daughter introduced us to and we sing along with often.
Couldn’t let the day end without wishing everyone a Happy New Year, and saying how grateful I’ve been to have been even a small part of this great online community. I have learned so much, laughed so hard, and looked forward to reading insightful commentary from AKM, her guest bloggers and all of you that I feel I owe a deep and profound debt to each and everyone.
May the New Year bring each of you everything you need, enough of what you desire to keep your dream alive and thriving, and renewed hope and health.
Happy New Year!
*clink*! Here’s looking at you, Mudpups & AKM. Onward thru the muck.
12:00 Alaska Standard New Years!
happy new year!
Happy New Year! I’ve enjoyed the Mudflats and lovely Mudpups this last year. Here’s looking forward to a fulfilling 2011.
Also too what ks sunflower expressed so beautifully.
Nola, Happy Birthday!
Happy new year all. May it be happy, healthy, prosperous and progressive.
NOLA, happy birthday! Happy new year to all. May it be full of blessings for all of us. May we be healthy, peaceful, prosperous, joyous, creative, and loving.
Thank you, AKM, for such a wonderful gathering place. Thanks also to your fellow bloggers: Shannyn, Linda, Drs. Ott and Steiner, Elstun, and everyone else who contributes here.
Thanks to all the mudpuppies for letting us know what you think and feel, and for all the links you share. Looking forward to spending another year in your company.
2-0-1-1!!
Thank you, everyone, for the Birthday wishes! I spent the day rather lazily, on the sofa in my PJ’s! Still recovering from broken leg, so I did my exercises and chillaxed! (I love that mashup!) I think I’m going to have my 2 resolutions for the new year – 1. Break nothing else and 2. Plan a trip for next new years! I have a friend in Paris who can put me up and I missed out this year!
I sincerely hope you have all had a lovely day, and wishing health and prosperity in the new year!
My favorite holiday wish is still the one that Raffi sang to my kids when I played his music every year…
“We fish you a hairy Christmoose and a Hippo new year…”
Hapy New Year all! I love the graphic AKM chose for this post. Does this mean 2011 will be a “roll of the dice”?
Ahhh, first to get some work done, then settle back for the rest of the day with football and a stein of beer!
Happy New Year, Happy Birthday, Happy Getting Better, Happy Whatever Else I Forgot!
Yesterday was awful around here. Lots of tornadoes, which gave Himself and I plenty of quality time in the hardened closet/shelter. Sheesh.
Today is going to be lovely! Good food, Rose Parade, and putting away crates of Christmas. I don’t like taking the decorations away. The house looks bare naked and kind of embarassed.
Have a wonderful year!
jimzmum…
if you celebrate the 12 days of christmas you get to extend your holiday razzle dazzle. we used to have a 12th day party and folks were oh so grateful to have something to look forward to after the 1st.
come to think of it…i might just resurrect that party.
That does it for me… will keep tree and decorations up till the 12th or 13th…
Jimzmum, I know … “the house looks bare naked and kind of embarassed.” Well here’s to fawnskin’s 12th day party and then packing up the holidays. *sniff*
may it be a year the media finds someone else to talk about other than SP.
Amen to that!
another AMEN from here!
Yeah.Yeah….so much for the niceties and all that stuff. I get stuck with a re-tread Re-dumblican guv and a revamped Supreme Court that fell victim to RWNJ activist goons, and I’m thinking might not be so Happy forth-with, Maybe I should start drinking again. On the other hand,I found more Mudpup Friends than I ever deemed possible,so maybe things have a way of evening out Happy New Years and many more to come,or else.
Mike – I invite you to follow a policy that has served me well for decades, which I call OTB: Outlast The Bastards. Never give in, and never give up. Happy New Year!
OTB sometimes works, but the other part of the problem is TAAMB: There Are Always More Bastards.
Happy first morning of 2011 ! Woke to 50 degrees and rain in Buffalo. It’s only here for the day but long enough that it is reducing the giant snow piles that I thought would be here until spring.
Here’s a little poll you might want to add your vote to:
Is Palin’s 2012 run already done for ?
http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/is-sarah-palins-2012-run-already-done-for/question-1415533/
I’m still catching up on all the news I missed while I was away for the holidays, but I did find out that Rachacha beat our old record for the snowiest December with 46.5 inches. We only beat the old record by .3 inches but, hey, every snowflake counts! Woo hoo!
I’m seeing the grass in my backyard for the first time in weeks and contemplating a run between the raindrops to fill the birdfeeder. Welllllll…maybe I’ll wait until tomorrow since I’d prefer to skip through the snowflurries instead!
Have a good day, all!
Happy and healthy New Year wishes to all of my lovely friends here at the Mudflats. I consider this blog a gift and all those who frequent it hold a special place. AKM, the highlight of my year was to meet and hang out with you at the Rally in DC. The combination was fabulous. Thank you for rescuing a fairly horrendous year for me.
For anyone who struggled through the last year, nay the last decade, may this special day (1/1/11) jump start your dreams and hopes, and catapult you into the next phase of life.
Happy New Year.
a heartfelt AMEN to that Ripley.
I’ll offer up a link to the late Dan Fogelberg’s “Same Auld Lang Syne.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhjYbfK9vrk
Tissues optional, but recommended.
HNY!
Happy New Year, especially to those who are struggling in these times. May your burden be eased, and may you find peace.
Wishing the very best for all Mudpuppies for the coming year from a cold (for us) Utah.
DD
Happy New Year to all the ‘pups. May your feet find a path that leads you to do well. May your heart find a path that leads you to do good. May your mind find a path that leads you to more sanity than not. I hope all paths lead to the mudflats.
Lovely! Clink,clink.
Happy New Year to all you mudflatters. Let’s hope 2011 treats us better than 2010. I’m optimistic! My New Year’s resolution is to stop being so critical of myself. No, never mind. On second thought I’ll never be able to do that. Ha Ha Ha.
New Year wishes from NW Washington State. It was 19 degrees here this morning, but the sun is bright, and all is well in my world. I hope all is well in your worlds. May this be a wonderful year full of love, joy, and hope for all mudpups.
This blog spot, AKM & crew, and all who meet up here are truly a gift, and I am so grateful!
Look out 2011! Here we go…
Best to all you and yours<3
PS…
Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy, J~O~Y !!!
Happy New Year to all the Mudpuppies! It’s raining here, again. The waterfalls are wonderful. It’s a real treat to see. Yesterday saw one cascading off a cliff right into the ocean. I hope everyone has a great 2011.
Happy New Year to all! I don’t know what the year will bring but I like to remember Anne of Green Gables when she said that each day is a new one with no mistakes in it (paraphrase, of course). And maybe that’s what this year will bring as well.
It’s cold here and the snow we had earlier in the week is still lingering. I decided to go out yesterday and had to scrape the ice off my car that had been sitting for a week. But the sun is shining and the wind has stopped blowing. And whoever it was that tried to blow up the neighborhood with their fireworks that sounded like a sonic boom at 4 something in the morning apparently didn’t succeed.
So there’s a good start to the New Year.
Happy New Year
to all the community of Mudflats who have suffered through illness or loss this past year or decade my prayer for you in song. written be Leonard Cohen and sung by Anthony Hegerty:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKhGKB6faW0
be still and be comforted
dearest bubbles…
with tears of sadness and joy running down my face, thank you.
some of the trials of the last calendar year knocked the stuffing outta me, dear friend…
Solstice and the turn toward light’s return always starts something important and necessary to picking up and moving on … this prayer …
it’s the next step…
hugs to you…
Today’s date can perhaps signal the beginning of a fresh, happy and healthy new year…1/1/11. We can all use new beginnings on occasion. I hope this is the start of a wonderful year for you with much joy and new directions.
And here’s Mr. Cohen himself, circa 1985, performing this as a duet with Anjani Thomas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHAHt2Hv_DI&feature=related
I love Mr Cohen’s work!
His own renditions of his songs and the songs themselves.
Songs which so very often inspire other artists to bring their full artistry to bear in interpreting them…
Pi. i listened to several renditions but Mr. Hegerty’s interpretation brought me to my knees in deep prayer. the tears flowed. the spirit swept through my soul and lifted me up and and up until i was swept into a distant realm where there is no sickness and all that i thought was lost was found.i stepped into this new decade with a blank slate: a new beginning.
bubbles- I am with you
I have been willing but not ready,
NOW, I’m ready…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dge7f1Ne4Ng
let’s walk now…
“for to be hopeless would be so strange…”
thank you Pi…..i too am willing. i am walking the walk with you….and harmonizing with you and all my sisters and brothers here and everywhere. happy New Year dear heart.
RE: Vice
As far as I’m concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue. ~Albert Einstein
Happy New Year, Mudpups! May the hypocrites who practice silent vice AND ostentatious virtue be exposed in all their humiliating glory in the year 2011. Starting with the loon on Lake Lucille…
me too Lee. i am all for silent vice….and noisy vice is good too.
To Hope.
To Change… and to being the change we want to see in our world (with thanks to M. Gandhi)
To the Power to Grow each day.
To Life.
L’Chaim. L’Shalom.
Here’s one from Sam Cooke for the mudflats chorus:
“There been times that I thought I couldn’t last for long
But now I think I’m able to carry on
It’s been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvayzIktTJ4
Carry on, dear friends,
with love,
thatcrowwoman
yes… to be hopeless would be so strange
Wow, what a beautiful rendition. That song is like the anthem I lived last year. Never heard this song, wish I could have heard it so beautifully sung instead of just chanting like-words to myself. (which worked by the way!)
thatcrowwoman is one lovely bird… Caw caw caw…
May this song lift and hold us all. “To the Power to Grow each day.”
happy New Year Mr President:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKhGKB6faW0
uh oh. wrong link.:
http://blackwaterdog.wordpress.com/2010/12/25/im-greatful-2/
you are going to love this! truly you will. trust me.
again happy New Year’s Mr. President and Mrs Obama
Great link, bubbles. Thanks.
Blackwaterdog always has the most upbeat posts on PO.
What a beautiful, inspiring tribute and a great reminder of how fortunate we all are to have him as President.
LOVE that smile and his fabulous sense of humor. Had to chuckle at that picture of him stepping on the scale! You really get the impression that he is completely genuine in his emotions. His smile comes from his toes and his compassion comes from his heart…and are not merely appropriate expressions practiced in front of a mirror.
Thanks for sharing!
Fabulous link bubbles. I’m so proud of our President Obama.
Mr. President, thank you, God Bless and Happy New Year! We are with you!
Thanks Bubbles!!! That was an awesome link!!! I love our President!!! Happy New Year, to all Mudpups where ever you are!!