New Year

Happy New Year to everyone!

With the year all shiny and new, I've been thinking about what the next 12 months will hold. This month will involve a root canal and surgery for my finger (yay!). March includes my 31st birthday (nudged fully into my 30's now). The end of May and beginning of June has Julie flying to New Brunswick (her first Canadian home town) to see her ex-wife and ex-girlfriend and her 2 year old twin girls. This year hopefully has some sort of trip that both Julie and I take, whether close by or a plane trip away, we're determined to go some place together for once. Actually, she really wanted me to go to New Brunswick with her, but unfortunately she's going right at fiscal year end at my work and with everything that goes with that, there's pretty much no way I would get time off approved.

I've made a decision to stop drinking alcohol as much. Not that I was overdoing it by any means, perhaps a bottle of wine or a six pack of beer every two weeks. It's just really expensive and carb-filled and I really don't want it to become a habit where on the weekend I'm at the liquor store. It's no help for stress, even though it feels like it at the time, and it's not a substitute for a sleep aid or painkiller. Anyway, I want to cut back on that...

I'm not making a resolution to eat better or to lose weight (both of which I need to do) because I don't want to set myself up to fail that expectation of myself. Instead, I've made a resolution to use up all of the food that comes into the house - including leftovers, that bag of salad that ends up sitting on the bottom shelf, the bag of carrots that get forgotten, etc. This, in a way, forces us to eat a little better. We're already bringing good things home from the store, but sometimes those good things end up forgotten or seem too high maintenance on a weekday evening when all we want is something fast. We've been trialing this for the past week and it's been working. We've both been cooking more and been more creative in the process. It's been kind of fun, actually. :)

I'm also going to get out of the apartment more and inject myself in social settings. Whether it's walking down a trendy avenue with cool shops and coffee bars or just walking around looking at things. I drive 25 minutes to work in the morning and 35 minutes home in the evening and I do not see what's happening around me. I see the car next to me and the pedestrian about to cross in front of me and the gas station sign I glance at to see what the price per litre is this week... but I don't see anything. The Telus building downtown always has Christmas lights on it... four or five outlines of Christmas trees that blink on and off at different intervals... it's one of the things that marks the holiday season for me... but this year, I've barely been able to glance at it as I drive by it EVERY DAY. Why? I'm driving on a long, three lane icy bridge in rush hour traffic and cannot take my eyes off of my lane for more than two seconds to glance to the side and marvel at the sight. Finally, about a week ago, I was on the other side of the river, stopped at a light, and I could see it straight ahead of me on the other side of the river bank. For those 10-15 seconds, I stared at it and got to see all the light sequences. It made my whole day. Now, of course you ask, 'why the hell didn't you make a point of going out to see it before then?' Well... really, it wasn't a conscious thing until that moment at the stop light. So anyway, I want to become more pedestrian in 2009.

Today, Julie and I went to Best Buy and picked up season 3 of Criminal Minds. That show is such a guilty pleasure. I also picked up the 3rd volume of the classic Tom and Jerry cartoons. I loved Tom and Jerry when I was a little kid. I actually cannot believe my parents let me watch it but I suppose it was different time then (gosh, am I that old that I can call my childhood a 'different time'? Yeesh). The package actually has a warning that it's for the Adult Collector and not for children. And then on the discs themselves, there is a full screen, well-worded disclaimer about the content. Watching the first three shorts on the first disc, I can totally see why they needed it and why they updated Tom and Jerry to fight in a much less violent manner (and speak).

Off to bed... work in the morning. Blah... oh well, at least I have weekends back. :)