I went to bed around midnight to the sound of loud, but not obnoxious, partying. I was so tired I didn’t even need earplugs!

Next thing I knew, it was 9:30. I can’t remember the last time I slept straight through for that many hours! I know I’ve bee feeling run down, but didn’t think I was that sleep deprived!

Isla is eerily quiet this morning. We’ve had quiet mornings, but not like this when even the roosters are sleeping in!

I’m taking today off to take care of chores, watch movies, do a puzzle, read, and go for a walk. My state contract begins on or about Tuesday next week and will keep me busy full time with decent income till I get home, so a day or two to breathe (I do have work for the weekend) is well earned.

I try not to make a big deal over an arbitrary change in numbers, but I can’t help remember where I was this day 15 years ago, at the dawn of not just a new year, not just a new century, but a new millennium.I was on the cusp of making the first major change in my life’s direction (leaving university to go to trade school), the first step to asserting the person I wanted to be rather than the person I was told I should be.

That bright young thing of 20 would have still be in utter disbelief to know of all the places she would see in the next decade and a half, much less that she would be ringing in 2015 from Mexico.