2006 Recap, and my plans for the new year

It’s a day late, but here is my year in review update… just a small recap of what happened in 2006:

January:

Lots of snow, lots of work… and Mom was here for the majority of this month to help out with our new addiction. Jonathan was born the previous month, but was a good kid for his first month at home. Mom got hooked into 24 that month too and watched the whole season even after she went back to Tennessee. Not much snow but the next month was worse weather wise…

February:

This was a rough month, winter wise… but normally in the island it is. We got invited to a wedding for the next month. My cousin Susan was getting married and Mom & Dad launched a huge plan. Leah and the kids were to go to the wedding with me but go to Tennessee with Mom and Dad for two months while I go back to the island to work. Leah was on mat leave so this seemed like a resonable idea since her and the kids would have more fun in the Tennessee weather than trapped by the snow.

March:

This was a chaotic month, cause we started it off with a bang… that being moving into a new appartment. A three bedroom became available and in less than a week we packed and moved everything. To top things off, March 1st (our moving day) was greeted with a blizzard. All of the big stuff was moved before the storm arrived, but that made getting the rest of the nitty gritty stuff done harder and we needed an extra day or two to finish up. This month was also the wedding. It was a great ceremony, and while I was going to miss the kids a million, they went to Tennessee and had a great time there while I flew back to the island to work.

April:

With just me and the cat living in the new appartment, I decided to do a few things to kill the time and keep myself out of trouble. The first thing I did was get a gym membership and put myself on a strict diet. Over the two and a half months while Leah and the kids were gone, I lost almost 20 lbs. The other thing I did was purchase a Playstation 2. I got a few cool games and used that to distract me when I didn’t have buds or anything else to do. A real time killer cause the gym wasn’t open 24/7.

May:

I started this month off right going to see Alice Cooper on the 1st, and it was an amazing show. I wish Leah was there cause she would have loved it. Later that month, I took a one week vacation to visit my brother Chris in Hamilton. Chris and I went to see a Jays game that week, and I helped him finish some important burning projects while he was working. Later that week Leah and the kids came back from Tennessee and we all fly home together.

Jnue:

This month marked my 2nd anniversary with the center. No one seemed to care, which was typical with this place. Superman Returns opened in theatres and we went to see it opening night. Good movie…

July:

This was your typical summer month. Nothing spectacular happened this month and it just went by rather fast. I spent a lot of this month and a lot of August at work, doing a boatload of OT. Little time was spent at home our out with the family… cause we needed the green.

August:

This month had a significant event. Leah was offered a job and wanted to stop her mat leave early. Rather than try to tackle daycare earlier than we wanted to, I offered to go on mat leave and stay home with the kids. The leave started on Aug 28th, and that was a great day for me… leaving the center at least temporarily.

September:

Leah’s new job didn’t turn out as well as we hoped, and I was only off work a day short of a month. I only colllect one week of EI, and I was back at the center. Going off work messed up my gym membership, and everything from there went into chaos. I wasn’t happy about going back but I did cause we needed the income. Things were not well going into October. Ethan celebrated his 3rd birthday and Leah celebrated the big three zero. Where does the time go?

October:

Because of Leah’s failed experiment, this was a rough month. I didn’t like going through this month short changed, but we managed to get by. Chris came to Ontario for Jonathan’s baptism which manged to go well, despite a few hitches. Yet to make matters worse, I tore my calf muscle and was on crutches for the longest time just days after my 31st birthday. So I literally limped into November…

November:

This month changed everything. A week into the month, Leah made the announcement that she wanted to leave the island and find better work. With that said, my parents took over and offered to pay to move our stuff. From their perspective, it was cheaper to pay for that than it was for them to fly up to the island for Xmas. If they were going to spend that kind of money anyway, this was the better way to go. So we spent all of November packing our stuff up and getting ready to move out at the end of the month. We tossed out a lot of stuff, and some how managed to move everything we needed to the new house. On November 21st I worked my last shift at the center, and quit. On November 29th, Leah and I fly to Ontario with the kids and moved to Hamilton. Our time on the island was over… at least for now.

Despite all of that happening in the month of November, I managed to participate in the ‘National Novel Writing Month’ event.. and succeed in reaching 50,000 words. Where I found the time, I still don’t know how… but I did. I’m still writing more chapters, and could finish very, very soon.

December:

The last month of the year has been a cyclone of events. I managed to find a new job in less than two weeks, and started immediately. It took a few weeks longer than expected, but Leah’s new daycare job is going to pay 120% more than what she was getting on the island. Mom came up for the entire month to help us ease into the new house, which is just flat out amazing. We celebrated Xmas at the new house and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. While not everything went well there that mointh, stress was high so fights and arguments were bound to happen here and there.

So that was 2006 in a nutshell. Two moves, job changes and a few arguments later, the world has turned upside down but I think for the better. Leah and I are in a new area and while we face new challanges, I’m confident we can work throuigh them and be better for it. It’s not going to be an easy change, the city scares Leah a lot and it’s going to take time for her to get used working in this province. She’s a trooper and will do just fine… at least I hope she will. Her work at the daycare is turning heads and managers are fighting over which will get her full time. That’s a good thing, and we need that kind of stability to stay afloat.

With that all said, here are my plans and goals for the new year:

Time to lose a few pounds, again:

While I managed to lose some weight when workingout at the gym, I lost momentum with the whole paternal leave mess, and gained it all back. I was doing well, and if I can start over do it again. I know it can be done, and will try again with a new gym in Hamilton. My goal is to lose 40lbs, and slim down the waistline a few inches… and this year not to yo yo back to my previous size.

Time for friends and family:

With Chris home to help out and with more people around to interact with… my plan is to make up for the last 11 years and reconnect with my family and get them involved with Leah and the kids. I want to also reconnect with old friends who are also married and with kids too. They are people I haven’t talked to since highschool and it’s time we caught up and hang out.

Make more time for the Mrs.:

One thing that 2006 seriously lacked was time with Leah. When I wasn’t at the center doing a crapload of OT to keep us afloat, I was either with the kids or sleeping. And with her the kids gone for over two months, Leah and I spent very, very little time together that year. I want to change that wiith the new year. With plenty of family members around offering to babysit, my goal is to take Leah out one night a month, just the two of us. Whether it’s for something simple as dinner and a movie or going to Toronot for either a sports event, concert or broadway show… I’m going to put aside some time to make sure the kind of distance Leah and I developed last year doesn’t happen again. This year will mark our 9th anniversary, and if we want to see ten, a lot of work has to be done to keep things together. Spending time together and enjoying each other again will help a great deal…

Blogathon ’07:

Yes, I’m going to do ‘the blogathon’ for a third year in a row. I made hundreds of dollars for the Hospital for Sick Children last year, and in 2005 I also made a good chunck of change for Amnesty International. This year I plan to write for a new charity, so if you guys have any suggestions to one that would be worthy of receiving this year’s blogathon money, feel free to email me a URL and I’ll consider making it this year’s chairty for my 24 hour blogging marathon! I have some ideas myself but haven’t decided just yet. With family here to help with the kids and the boys old enough to sleep through the night, and two weeks vacation offered by the new center… this year will be a little easier to blog through, so I intend to raise money for chairty a third year in a row on Open Diary again!

The Manifest:

The 50,000 word novel that I started for NaNoWriMo turned out to be some of the best work I’ve written in almost ten years. This book has what it takes to publish… and possibly sell big. I know it as do the people who have read it and provided feeback. I’m hovering around 200 pages right now, and this thing will balloon to 300-350 pages before reaching a conclusion. I’m only a few inspired weeks of writing away from finishing this…. and I’m telling everyone now, I will finish it. My goal is to finish the last chapter before February ends. When complete, I intend to go to Toronto to find a literary agent who will for a percent push the book to publishers, who I hope will offer a contract so I can publish this book and write other novels as well. This book is all that and then some. People who have read exerpts have been kind and even offered bribes for a chance to read more. This is what I want to really do for my living…. write books and sell millions of copies to people around the world. I know I can do it, and in 2007 I will take my best shot. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll at least know I tried my best. Autographed copies for all my favorites should this work!

So… those are my goals and plans for 2007. I also plan to take Ethan to his first baseball game this season at the Skydome in Toronto, but that isn’t as important as the ones listed above. For now I’m at the new center, work here is going really well and if this place is all I have for the year… that willl be all right cause I do like it here and this is a much better worst case scenario than the one I was looking at this time last year. I hope that everyone else has plans for a better 2007 and I hope that the new year turns out to be everything you wanted and then some…

Take care, and enjoy the new year.

Peter