Wishing you all, and all beings, a night and life with warmth, security, love and Light. Happy New Year!

Last year I started a new tradition – getting out and up to view new year’s day sunrise from Horsetooth Reservoir, in the Colorado foothills just minutes from my home. This second “first light” watching the dawning of a new year was incredible – it had snowed and frosted in magical ways during the night, though this year the fog and clouds to the east were so thick the sun itself wasn’t visible. Still exquisitely beautiful and frigidly cold!

Every moment is a new dawn,

and I wish for all as much Light as we can hold! And then breathe, and drink in a little more.

My fingers were numb and freezing, driving home, and when I arrived back to the coziness, I poured myself some hot coffee and lit a fire in the fireplace.

Then I slowly, instinctively, with much gratitude, made my first meal of the year. Wild rice pecan fritters, pepper smoked mackerel, truffled brie, blue cheese stuffed green and kalamata olives, maple cranberry jalapeno sauce, clementine and blackberries.

The wild rice blend – with toasted pecans, from my sister in Oklahoma, and nut orchards in her home town – was a smidge of leftovers from Christmas, still fresh. The smoked mackerel I’d set aside and froze from my son’s birthday dinner on the 24th – Scottish fish, delicious cold or warm! The truffle brie was a holiday gift from my brother, handcrafted in Marin County California. We had visited and bought cheeses there my last visit to see family in 2013. 🙂 Leftover cranberry jalapeno sauce too, originally made to glaze our Christmas Day roast sockeye salmon fillet. The blackberries and clementines were a little gift from my son, part of the holiday provisions we didn’t get to during the family celebrations here in my home. The olives – well, those I picked out special, just for today. The blue cheese is the perfect stuffing for those giant green olives.

I think it’s how we celebrate the leftovers – in every form, from all aspects of our life – that can help us carry on, giving grace and continuity, a deeper appreciation for all that we have. Letting go of a constant “wanting more” that is so much a part of this culture here on earth. When we discover that making do with what we have gleans such a rich, rich palette (and platter!) of experience, we have gotten somewhere. Deeper into our hearts, I believe. It feels like that to me, this quiet, glorious, wood fired and coffee fueled new year’s day.

Wishing you joy.