Happy New Year Everyone!

Wow, the holidays came and went really fast, just like it does every year. Each year there is the intent to do so many things, b/c there is “so much” time to do everything. The possibilities are endless.

But as usual, time runs up and you wonder what the hell you did with “all this time off”. If you think about it though, you only get about week off. I guess it’s the anticipation of everything, which starts weeks before the actual holidays.

I feel for those who have to work even during these weeks, and for you I tip my hat off. I SERIOUSLY needed this time off, more than I realized. I haven’t had a true vacation since I started working in February, so this was definitely due.

This Christmas was mostly spent with family/friends as well as scrambling to get gifts finished. Speaking of which, I am content with my spending this year. It’s always a bit nerve racking when I’m tallying up how much I spent, but after using the “=sum()” function in excel, the final number wasn’t too bad! Seeing that university was over, there were less school friends to buy gifts for, nor roommates or any clubs/associations I was apart of either…Only 1 secret santa this year! Course, the $$ per person was higher, but thankfully it didn’t hurt the pocket TOO badly.

Gifts
Well, the biggest gift I received was a 20 GB iPod. I was totally shocked when my parent suggested it, since I didn’t think they would go for such a bit ticket item for me. Hey, I’m not complaining! :). Since I am using a PowerMac, it was really easy to sync up the music to my iPod. It was basically plugging it into my computer and coming back 10 mins later! There wasn’t any software to install, or anything other than ripping my Cds into the computer.

I found a cool hack program that lets me access the iPod, in the event I want to take music from the iPod off to my mac. The problem with it is the way iPod categorizes its files – there is NO rhyme or reason to it! All my music is subdivided into “f” folders, numbered from “f00” to “f49”, with about 10-25 music files per folder. I’m sure there has got to be some reason for it, but finding an album would require digging through each folder one by one to find out where all 12 tracks are. They are not placed together by name, date modified, date imported, file size or kbps rate. Who knows. Ah well.

I also received some great gifts from my other family and friends, which included an assortment of wonderful organic herbal teas, an alternative foods cooking cookbook, Cranium, Cds, iPod accessories, American Apparel / H&M / Mexx clothing and a super snuggily handmade fleece blanket. I am truly grateful for all these amazing gifts! WOW, my friends/family really know what I want :). I’d say there wasn’t anything that I didn’t want or liked, which can be a super issue when it comes to clothing.

Present for SBF
This was actually the first xmas spent with SBF. This has been quite a great year so far, and for a xmas present I give him gifts and began with “H”. That translated to: Something...

Hallmark;
Huggibly H&M;
Handy;
Hilarious; and
...Something from the Heart

I think he liked the gifts, b/c c’mon, it’s always fun to get lots of little gifts :). To even my surprise, I even wrapped it in remaining wrapping paper from Christmas and not newspaper (we exchanged our gifts after Christmas/boxing day)! SBF’s gift to me was extra special as well, with each gift corresponding to “EAT” “DRINK” and “BE MERRY”. Impressive indeed!!

Paying Respect
This marks the 6th Birthday since my cousin passed away. His birthday was on Dec 25, and each year we go to pay our respects. I got some potted mums to place on the grave. He would have turned 25 years old this Christmas. I still miss him a ton b/c he is my age and theoretically we could have been close cousins/friends. Visiting his grave each Christmas is NOT something that puts a damper on the day, and on the contrary, it reminds me of the delicacy and beauty of living. We are not invincible. Dave Matthews has written many songs that speaks to death and tragedy: rather than mourning forever you’ve got to live life to the fullest and celebrate life for its sweetness and shortness. My favourite quote, “Eat drink and be merry” is from a Dave Matthews lyric that speaks to celebrating today b/c for all you know tomorrow we may die. This quote also does have a historical reference too:

There is nothing under the sun better for man than to eat, drink, and be merry. Go, therefore, eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with cheer.” Ecclesiastes 8:15

I’ll just leave it at that.

Dinner in our own Italy
Without getting too personal, over the xmas holidays I did get to see my SBF. We actually didn’t get to see each other until the following Tuesday, due to our family engagements as well as seeing our friends. SBF went back home outside of Toronto and had lots of catching up to do with his family and friends back home. We booked off the entire Tuesday and New Year’s Eve together. I can be quite a hopeless romantic, and so the evening before we went off to New Year’s celebrations with friends we had a special dinner together. SBF found a organic pizza place downtown called Magic Oven that makes Organic Spelt and Gluten free dough, Organic Non-Dairy and Rennet Free Cheese, Dairy Free and Vegan Pizzas. For once I could have a pizza! It was perfect. We ordered take out and transformed his dining room into our own little alternative restaurante in Italy, accompanied by the mellow sounds of Diana Krall. We also made some vegetarian rice pasta to go with our meal, topped off with mango juice to wash everything down. What better way to spend an evening before heading out for New Years!

Wedding Bells!
Oh, I have to write about this. I will be the BEST MAN at one my friend’s weddings! Can you believe it! I am totally honoured and hope I can help them out as much as possible. The wedding won’t be until July, but there is a Stag and Doe to organize in the next few months. I don’t know the first thing about wedding, but after our pre-wedding party meeting/dinner, I think it will go just fine!

Tsunami
I have to write about this tragedy, b/c it had totally blown me away. I can’t believe such a major disaster could come during the holiday season, and while we sit here basking in our homes people are still searching the corpses washing up on the shore each day to see if it’s their missing loved one. Wow. I am definitely going to donate some $$ to relief aid, which will probably be Oxfam or some of the smaller organizations that are working directly our East. Most are giving to the Red Cross, but I’m not sure if 100% of the funds will be going out directly to the relief out east or if some will be diffused to related causes and probably some to pay off their massive overhead costs too.

Resolutions
And finally, there are the resolutions. I’m not big on these, and thus I will not list out 100 things I want to improve starting today. I know what I’ve got to do in my life right now, and I’m going to keep working at them. Once thing I want to start with this calendar year is having a binder with all my major expenses in them. That way, each year I’ll have a binder corresponding to all the big ticket / credit card / rent etc. costs in one. Wouldn’t that be great? Ok, geek accountant coming out here! I could go an recollect all that happened this year, but that will take forever, and i can just as easily hit "see archive" to see some of the major happenings over 2004 :)

I hope everyone had a great holiday, and hopefully 2005 start off with a bang!

Take care,

RE

“Eat drink and be merry”