Well, I've been home since Wednesday of last week and aside from still waking up a bit earlier than I'd like most things are back to normal. I've gotten all of the Christmas stuff put away and cleaned up. The dog and I are getting used to each other, she's already doing much better. She has thrown up, pooped and peed in the house once each and I'm hoping that will be the extent of it. I think she is just getting used to being in a new environment and getting over her initial depression. She really is a sweet dog.  She follows me around quite a bit but has already started to be a bit more independant.
The new year always brings with it a sense of refreshment and newness. This doesn't make much sense to me as nothing has actually changed. I didn't really get that ramp up to the new year because I was gone but now that I'm home I'm thinking about all I want to accomplish this year.  A lot of the things that are running through my head are creative and crafty projects. Of course the biggest and most obvious necessary accomplishments will be finding a job. Second to that might be dating. 
I have a quilt in progress that I want to get finished so I can move on to other projects I have stored up in my head. A quilt for my sister is next up on the list, and then I think one for myself! I think I'll be taking a break from jewelry making for a while to pursue other hobbies. I'd like to start painting again but that requires buying the supplies and having the space to do it. Hopefully by the end of this year I will have started again.

Last New Year's Eve was self inflictedly uneventful, I sat home by myself and watched a marathon of some show on the food network.  I was perfectly content to do so too, I just ignored the ringing in of the new year and the next day Em and I went to the beach and it was a beautiful day. This year couldn't have been more different! I was in Florence to ring in the new year. Emily and her roomates had friends over and they all cooked. We hung around until about 11:15 then we went to one of the piazza's, it was the one in front of the Uffizi gallery. I had some great pictures and videos so you could get the true sense of what it was like but my camera decided to eat them. :(  Anyhow, there was a full orchestra playing, it was raining and there were extremely loud fireworks going off. Actually it sounded more like cannons but I think that could be because all of the buildings are so close together. All of the sound just reverbs off of them. It really was sort of magical. I gave up on holding an umbrella so I was standing there getting rained on, under large marble statues, listening to live classical music and fireworks. It was pretty cool.
That's kind of a random update, but there it is.