Ask not for whom the Ball Drops...

by Jeanne Adams

It drops for thee! Grins.

Are you partying tonight? Are you getting dressed up and going out? Having people in? My house is going to fill up today with family. My brothers-in-law and their wives and sons will be arriving today to spend New Years with us. It will be loud - perhaps not quite as loud as Times Square where Bandita Jo is tonight! - but it's gonna be raucous.

Tomorrow, we'll have a huge meal, much like Thanksgiving or Christmas with steak and pototoes and all that yummy stuff. Its wonderful because my family is in North Carolina so we travel there for Thanksgiving. No leftovers. Ahhhh, but Christmas and New Years...LEFTOVERS!!! WOOHOOO! Its amazing how much I love 'em.

So that's all to say that we are totally BORING up here in DC. (After all, there's a big party only a couple weeks away on inauguration, can't get a sitter for both nights, right?) It's been a long time since we dressed up and went out to party. I vaguely rememer it being a total blast.

Do you have any traditions? What do you do at New Years? I looked up a bunch of things on Wikipedia. Did you know they officially kick of New Years in Sydney, Australia? *Waving at our darling Aus Banditas* I'm sure they knew that, but for us non-Aus-ers, they do fireworks over the Sydney Harbour bridge.

In fact they do fireworks almost everywhere, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, and India. Even in China, where they celebrate their Lunar New Year later, they blast off New Year Fireworks on "our" New Year.

Wiki says the Italians wear red underwear at New Years, but doesn't explain it. Anyone know why? (Not that I don't like red unmentionables, but I'm curious...) In Japan they clean. Okay, I don't want to spend New Years in Japan. :> Seriously it's the time to clear the temples and prepare to welcome the god of the New Year. (I still don't want to clean) In New Zealand, evidently the Black Caps cricket team play a New Years One Day game. Seems they've outlawed liquor in some places due to those rowdy Kiwis going beyond the reckless and into the vandalous.

Another odd one from Wiki is Mexico. Again with the red undies - for those who wish to find love - and get this...YELLOW undies for luck with money. (The guy to the left is the closest to yellow undies I could find, but he does look LUCKY...right?) I wonder if stripes gets you both? Oh and in Peru, there's the whole yellow-for-luck-undies, plus if you walk around the block with a suitcase, you'll get the trip of your dreams in the new year. In both countries, they eat a grape for every strike of the clock at midnight and make a wish for each grape. I like that one. I'm going to use it tonight! Grapes, I have.

Do you make resolutions? If so, how many - one or a hundred? Something in between? Do you make family resolutions? I have a friend who gets her husband and kids together on New Years Eve and they make family resolutions for the year. Its pretty cool. They also have a 1/2 New Years in June, to check and see how they're doing on their resolutions!

Now I know Tawny's one of our Major List Makers - I'm betting she makes resolutions right along with her goals - and I know there were quite a number of Bandita Buddies who confessed to being inveterate list makers as well.

So, fess up. Do you make 'em? Do you check on 'em half-way through the year? Do you keep 'em till the next turn of the Year?

And another time for confession....is one of your goals this year to finish the D*mn BOOK? Grins.

So ready the fireworks, get the undies on, pick up a suitcase (writing's a journey, after all!) and let's celebrate a FABULOUS new year. It's the countdown to the Ball Drop, the countdown to the Queen's Speech (Denmark and the UK), countdown to some wonderful resolutions.

Let's hear 'em, Ladies and Gentlemen!

Resolutions That Should've Been

by Beth Andrews

I'm not much for making resolutions (although I do love to set goals - two different things to my brain *g*) but here we are, almost three weeks into the new year and although I'm checking things off my goal list left and right, I can't help but wonder if I should've added a few resolutions. Just to make sure all the bases are covered. So, here is my list of resolutions I would've made, had I made resolutions.

#1 - watch more basketball. Hey! I'm already doing this - I must be on the right track *g* With three kids playing in two different leagues, I go to at least 3 basketball games a week. Yes, I have a severe case of Bleacher Butt, but at least I've kept the first resolution.

#2 - Watch more movies. I just watched Pirates of the Carribean, At World's End (or as my son calls it, POC, AWE) Just watched it - and it came out in May of last year! I am soooo far behind I am on my movies. More trips to the video store!

#3 - Catch up on all the television programs I've missed. Like Heroes. Ugly Betty. Supernatural (although I've caught a few episodes of this season) Project Runway. Rome. Deadwood. Lost. Okay, this list could seriously go on and on and on and...well...you get the idea. Suffice it to say, if I kept this resolution, I'd never write again.

#4 - Stop pressing down on the imaginary brake when my son is driving. No matter how hard I press, the car never even slows down, let alone stops. So unless my foot goes through the floorboard ala Fred Flintstone to drag on the road, I'm probably wasting my time.

#5 - Get my husband to stop shouting, "We're going to die. We're going to DIE!!" when son is driving the car. This is the reason no one likes backseat drivers.

#6 - Stop being so mean and strict! Oh, sorry. That one is my older daughter's resolution for me. Can you tell she's a teenager?

#7 - Take more mental health days. Really, after reading the above, is this one a surprise?

#8 - Have fewer negative thoughts. This one is a bit more serious but I've read that we have 60,000 thoughts a day and that for most people, 80% of those thoughts are negative. Yikes! So I'm going to work on getting that percentage way down. After all, negative thoughts sure as heck never did me any good.

#9 - Stop eating celery. Eating celery has never done me any good either. I think I'll just skip it from now on.

#10 - Embrace new opportunities. Like the wonderful opportunity all the Bandits have to take over at Romance Novel TV! We kick off our invasion tomorrow with the witty and wonderful Anna Campbell and Caren Crane and The Haiku Challenge. *g*

What about you? Any resolutions you should've made? For those who made resolutions, how it's going? Are you sticking with them or have they fallen a bit by the wayside?

And don't forget to check out the Bandits at Romance Novel TV during the next two weeks :-)

It's That Time Again...

by Tawny Weber

The New Year is upon us once again (where DID the time go?) and that brings us to the ever-frustrating experience of setting New Year’s resolutions.

Me, I’m not so much into the resolution gig. I’m more of a goal setting gal, myself. The difference? I always think of resolutions as those things we decide to quit or avoid (lose weight, quit smoking, cut back on caffeine--of which the latter always baffles me... no caffeine? Ack) while goals are things to work toward. It’s really just semantics, but years as a hypnotherapist showed me over and over again the success of phrasing something as positively as possible. A goal is active, a resolution is more static. Goals can be broken into easily focused-on steps, resolutions seem to rely on willpower (of which I have diddly, as evidenced by the fact that all the homemade almond rocca is gone already).

But I have to admit, I can’t escape the lure of the New Year. The last week of December, I always find myself setting next year’s goals. Some little, some big, all adjustable to life’s whims. Maybe it’s the lingering warm fuzzy feeling of the holidays, but I always use this time to count my blessings. In the rush to pen a list of changes we expect ourselves to make, it’s easy to forget the things we want to hold on to. So I’ll sit with my husband and kids and we’ll reflect on all the great things we did over the last year, or the fun changes we’ve experienced. I had so many in 2007, including the release of Double Dare last May and Does She Dare?, which is hitting the shelves right about now.

Celebrating Does She Dare? is even more fun right now since the heroine, Isabel, is as much of a goal setter as I am – she even color codes her lists (including the one she calls The Man Plan, which leads to all kinds of naughty fun!). Hey , it worked for her.



How about you? As this last week of 2007 winds down, will you be reflecting on your blessings, crafting a resolution list or ignoring the whole thing? And just for fun , if you share one thing you’re grateful for, one goal/resolution you’ll be focusing on I'll toss your name in the hat to win a goal setting basket filled with goodies, including the ever-important markers for color coding!!