Tag: New Year’s Day

Here we go again

I’ve lately begun to realise New Year’s is somewhat silly. Just because the Earth passed some arbitrary point relative to the sun everyone feels the need to reflect on the days that have passed since last time we were here, party through the night (which, let’s face it, hasn’t made sense since your early twenties), and then make a bunch of promises we don’t intend to keep on how the next circuit around old Sol is going to be different than the last one.

But hey, who am I to snub my nose at tradition?

Continue reading “Here we go again” →

Have a great 2016 y’all

Yes, in a total break with tradition on if all else fails… I’m actually writing my New Year’s post on New Year’s day. I said things were going to be different this year.

And to shake things up even further, I’ve decided to make a New Year’s Resolution. Not an intention, but an actual Resolution, with a capital ‘R’.

Continue reading “Have a great 2016 y’all” →

So long, 2015

I started 2015 unemployed and in bed with a fever, and mused that things could only get better. That turned out to be somewhat prophetic, though I missed the bit about things first getting worse.

But things getting worse was probably the best thing that could have happened, because it convinced me to give up.

I will remember 2015 as the year I gave up. I gave up on further academic studies. I gave up on a career and a dream. I gave up on what I believed (and to come degree still believe) to be my calling and in the process gave up a significant part of myself.

Conventional wisdom says winners never quit. I say conventional wisdom is an idiot. A well-intentioned idiot, but an idiot nonetheless.

For quitting freed me up to try something new. And it has paid off beyond my wildest dreams.

With little more than an hour left before I bid 2015 farewell, I look back and have to say that this was a great year. As awful as it started, and as discouraging as the first two thirds were, the final four months have surpassed my wildest imaginings.

As I told my colleagues when I wished them a happy New Year earlier, for the first time in many years I’m excited about the new year. Between my new job and the new adventure of fatherhood lying ahead, I can’t wait to see what 2016 will hold.

Happy New Year. I’ve a feeling it’s going to be a good one.

I know it’s kinda late, but…

Happy New Year!

In keeping with tradition here on if all else fails… I wish you a happy New Year a week late. This time I have a valid excuse. I started the 2015 somewhat internet deprived. I couldn’t even get Google to load, never mind my blog’s dashboard.

I also woke up to the Year of the Spinning Mouse with a burning fever and a sore throat. As if I didn’t feel awful enough already, my condition was exacerbated by the knowledge that it wasn’t even the result of excessive partying the night before – the wife and I were snug in bed by 10PM on New Year’s Eve. I know. We’re very boring.

Stricken down as I were, with no energy whatsoever to engage the outside world and no internet to distract me, I turned my thoughts inward…

Continue reading “I know it’s kinda late, but…” →

Howdy, 2014

This morning as we enjoyed our first cuppa of the new year, I noticed the wife’s a bit teary.

“What’s the matter?” says I.

She responds, “I’ve just managed to finish one year, and now I have to do another one!”

One doesn’t think of it like that, does one?  Once the partying is done and the hangover has subsided, there’s another whole three-hundred and sixty-four days lying ahead in which to push and fight and grin and bear it and fail and get knocked down until you no longer want to get up.

It’s enough to bring one to tears.  But there’s also another whole three-hundred and sixty-four days lying ahead in which to be kind and show compassion and take risks and have adventures and tell stories and make art and laugh and love and learn.  Another year in which to give hugs and hold hands and make friends and be amazed at the wonder of this universe in which we live.

That’s the year I’m wishing for you all.  May 2014 take you on the wildest ride of your life and leave you completely changed come its end and may you look back three-hundred and sixty-five days from today and say, “Damn!  I wish I could go again.”

Happy New Year!

P.S.  We’re headed to the in-laws (again) tomorrow (apparently they have another snoek needs cooking), and I’m foreseeing another lack of internet over there, so if I don’t respond to comments, please don’t take it personally.  The first book review of 2014 will still go up on Friday and I’ll be back by Monday for the year’s very first Song Title Challenge.