Happy New Year of the Snake.  Apparently snake years are all about obstacles and difficulties, but my Grate Frend, Beatriz, has a much sunnier interpretation.  She considers the year of the snake to be all about sloughing off one skin and revealing another, metaphorically reinventing ourselves and being who we want to be.  I think I prefer that to a year of difficulties and sore trials, so I shall look forward to a new me emerging.