Happy Lunar New Year!

2007 is the year of the Boar, specifically fire boar. Today in particular, you should utter kind words and nice thoughts to all of your loved ones. It’s finally Spring now according to the lunar calendar.

Kung Hsi Fa Ch’ai!

“People born in the years of the Fire element are born-leaders. They are decisive and confident. They are also more aggressive and positive than other natives of their particular sign.

These individuals love adventure and innovation. They are constantly on the move and they like to explore new horizons.

They are true to their element and they usually attract others through their brilliance and warmth. Given to dynamic speech and action, the people ruled by the Fire element will try to dominate others with their originality and clever thinking.

They have all the requirements to be winners in life but they must be sympathetic to the views of others before taking action. The more Fire people try to achieve their goals by force, the more they will encounter obstacles. People of this element must keep a check on their emotions.

Their ambitions and forcefulness may amplify their selfishness and make them inconsiderate and impatient when they do not get what they want. It would be good for Fire persons to cultivate patience and compassion to curb their impulsive tendencies.”

Source

Today a family friend invited us and the rest of the family to New Years dinner at a Chinese buffet. I stuffed myself silly because there were just too many things I wanted to have just one of, and then suddenly I couldn’t breathe. I don’t tend to like Chinese buffets but it was pretty fun because all my cousins were there and we hung around catching up with each other after dinner talking about college, World of Warcraft, Warcraft3 (Defense of the Ancients), Australia plans, taxes, and snow days. Collecting hong baos at the end of dinner was a nice perk too! It snowed tonight and on our way home, the roads were very icy. Later, we made glutinous rice balls (tang yuan) and they are right now sitting on the deck freezing. Easier to store them to cook later. Technically, you eat these to ring in the first day of Winter according to the Lunar calendar, but people also eat them to celebrate any auspicious time.