Happy New Year and Good Luck!

Most people I ask say 2010 was not a very good year.  And, now, as I write this, we are just hours away from a new year. Prosperity, health, wealth, strength and good luck are near! BUT, only if you do the right things to prepare.

I’ve compiled a list to help you out.

First, there are all the foods you must eat. Some foods must be eaten on New Year’s Eve, a few must be eaten on New Year’s Day and other food stuffs must be eaten at exactly at the stroke of midnight! If unsure when best to eat, I recommend eating all day and night! And, if some of these ideas have not been your tradition, you might consider adding them, just to change your luck.

  • Eat a few long noodles for long life! (Now, it’s important to note here that you must not to break the noodle before you eat it, therefore cutting your life short, so, my advice is to be careful not to choke which is not very good luck, at all.)
  • Eat meat! Meat means prosperity and strength. Eating meat on New Year’s means good luck all year long. I’ve read that brisket is popular, but, many traditions include pork.  Fish is important, too. Fish swim in schools and represent abundance. Whatever you do, do not eat anything with wings or your luck will fly away.
  • On to the greens! Greens represent wealth. Cabbage, collards, kale, green peas are all good for adding green backs to your new year. If you like sauerkraut, all the better, because sauerkraut also adds intelligence to the equation.
  • Black-eyed peas and lentils represent coins, indicating wealth, too.
  • Potatoes have roots deep in the earth. They (along with carrots, turnips, parsnips, etc) add stability.
  • Leave a bit of food on your plate on New Year’s Eve until after midnight to ensure a well stocked larder all year.
  • At midnight, eat 12 grapes, one for each strike of the clock and/or for each month of the new year. And, adding a 13th grape assures your good luck!
  • It is also prudent to add a coin to your baked bread and your peas while cooking.

Here are some more “to-dos” to insure good luck.

  • Jingle a change purse at midnight and keep a handful of coins in your pockets, too!
  • Hide some money outside on New Year’s Eve. Bring the money back inside on New Year’s Day to keep that money coming in all year.
  • Don’t let the first guest of the new year in your house be anyone other than a good looking young man who is carrying a loaf of bread.
  • Wear red underwear!
  • Hang a pine branch for longevity, a bamboo stalk for prosperity and a plum blossom for nobility.
  • At first toll of midnight, open the back door to release bad luck. Close the door before the 12th stroke and run to the front of your house to get the front door opened when the clock strikes 12 to welcome in the good luck.
  • Make lots of noise at midnight to chase away evil spirits.
  • Don’t sweep away the good spirits on New Year’s Day, but do sweep away bad spirits on New Year’s Eve, of course.
  • And, whatever you do, don’t forget to kiss your lover, right at the stroke of midnight.

Please share your New Year’s traditions so I can add them to my list, too!

Happy New Year and Good Luck!

Share

Congratulations, Shani and John!

The recent wedding of my niece was wonderful on all counts! Of course, it is always great to spend time with my sisters, who are hands-down absolutely my best friends and who I do not get to see often enough.

And, in the days prior to and after the wedding, I noshed my way through my old hometown favorite foods, like an Em’s Original Torpedo, Murphy’s wings, Shaffer’s teaberry ice cream, Gibbles potato chips, AND topped all that off with my brother-in-law Ken’s fantastic grilled steak dinner, which made my taste buds and tummy extremely happy!

I got to visit with my extended family and I went to the cemetery to see Mom and Dad and Dennis. I did the covered bridges tour and visited Gravity Hill with Carrie and Pam (which will be written about in future blog posts).  And, we shopped at Boscov’s, a very cool department store where you always leave thinking you have found a bargain!

But, the highlight of this long weekend spent in western Pennsylvania, my whole purpose in being there, was for Shani and John’s wedding.

John and Shani May 29, 2010
(Photo copyrighted by Kelley P. Smallman Photography)

 

To Shani and John,

It was a lovely wedding and reception! Thank you for sharing your day and showing your guests a wonderful time! I watched the two of you laugh a lot together on your wedding day, and I thought to myself that YES, laughter is the secret to a long lasting loving relationship. And, so my wish for you both, on your journey through this life together, is that you always make each other laugh!

Oh, and in 20 years or so, when you have your Renewal of Vows Ceremony, be sure to invite me!

Share

My good fortune

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you might remember that I mentioned a dream I had in late December. In it, I was ice skating. There were other skaters, skating on this frozen pond in a clearing in the woods. There were bonfires and people drinking mugs of hot chocolate. Everyone was happy and laughing. The snow was falling and I was skating perfect figure eights. I remember feeling incredible joy. 

I’ve been giving this dream a lot of thought and have concluded there is a message of great import in it for me.

Since I do not know how to ice skate, I think the dream is a metaphor for me to try new things. And, I think I was ice skating and not skydiving because the message is that I need not be afraid. (Not to make light of ice skating injuries, but, really, what’s the worse that might actually happen? [That is a rhetorical question and one I am not asking you to answer.])

The message is that if I am willing to try, I just might succeed and have a damn good time doing it!

Since this dream and my conclusion of it, I’ve been looking for meaning in all kinds of little things happening around me.

For instance, let me share something that happened to me a week or so ago. Brian and I went to the Chinese buffet for dinner. After dinner, I went to the ladies room to wash my hands and when I returned Brian was opening his fortune cookie. I picked up the remaining one, the one meant for me, and began opening it, while he read his fortune. “Your fondest dream will come true within this year,” his said. And, his lucky numbers are 8, 13, 23, 30, 33, 38.

I broke mine open only to discover that mine did not have a fortune in it. What? No fortune? This has never happened to me before. What can that possibly mean?

Figuring there are numerous reasons myths about why a person would not receive a fortune in his fortune cookie, I decided to go searching on the internet.  (This is never a good thing for me to do. I typically get hung up on all the extraneous info and end up spending hours on something that should have taken only minutes. Which is the case here, too.) 

To make a long story short, the general consensus in the world of fortune cookie myths is that it is very bad to get a fortune cookie with no fortune inside. The answer that I liked best, though, is this one on wiki-answers in response to someone very worried about his lack of a fortune in his cookie:

The Ying and Yang fortune cookie company has a telepathic employee who knows who is going to get each and every fortune cookie made. When she came to your cookie, she started typing up your fortune, but since it was so large, she ran out of room. She got a letter-sized piece of paper and began typing again. When she finished, she couldn’t figure out how to insert it into the cookie quickly, without cracking the cookie before getting wrapped and falling into the shipping bag at the end of the conveyor belt. If you call the company, it has your fortune sitting next to the phone, waiting for you to call, because the telepathic woman knows that you will indeed call, having telepathic abilities and all.

Haha! I also read that many people believe that the entire fortune cookie must be eaten in order for the fortune to come true. Or, believe that you should not eat the fortune cookie if the fortune seems unlucky. Or, that the entire cookie must be eaten before reading the fortune (ooh, which means that if you got an unlucky fortune, you are screwed). Or, that the fortune will not come true if read aloud, or read at all. Then there are rules on how to select your cookie. Do you close your eyes, pick one for someone else at the table, or choose a cookie that appears to be pointing at you?

I always let everyone select their cookie by whatever method they choose, and then I take the last one. It is that last remaining cookie that holds my fortune.

I’ve decided that  not getting a fortune in my fortune cookie is the luckiest of all possibilities. It means I get to create my own fortune!

What do you believe about fortune cookies?

Share