Cheers!

Wow, what a day! It oozes potential, drips with possibility. It is the first day of the rest of my life. WOW!

Already, in the few short hours since the birth of the new year, I have experienced the first wind storm of 2012. I woke up for the first time in 2012. I took my first pee of the new year, brewed my first pot of coffee, put on my first pair of socks and settled my boys' first argument of 2012.

Still flush from all this excitement, I plan, later, to cook my first breakfast of 2012, shower for the first time and then, wait for it, brush my teeth. I may even vacuum. For the first time. In 2012.

And with all of these accomplishments behind me, I will resolve to do great things in the coming year. I'll quit smoking, quit drinking, cure diabetes, run a marathon, backpack through Europe, buy a yacht and figure out how they get the soft, flowing caramel inside the Caramilk bar.

Now last year wasn't a complete loss. For example, as one of my final acts of 2011, last night I cooked supper. I made ribeye steaks with a red wine reduction pan sauce. And actually, that was a first and it was delicious! Can't wait to make that for the first time this new year.

So, Happy New Year all. Hope you had a great night last night and I hope your head isn't feeling two sizes too small for your brain. Me? I'm clean. Neomom worked last night, so I was home alone with the boys. In bed by 11. Very, very exciting.

To be honest, the last time I remember actually doing anything for New Year's Eve was in 1999, when I celebrated the impending doom of Y2K with Patrick, Wendy and my girlfriend at the time, now known as Neomom. That was back in Fort Erie, Ontario, in the little house on Brock Street, in a different life. I was a newspaper editor. Neomom was an archaeologist. We had no kids, comparatively little responsibility.

Yeah, a lot has changed. But I'm pretty sure that, having survived Y2K, I vowed to quit smoking, quit drinking, cure diabetes, run a marathon, backpack through Europe, buy a yacht and figure out how they get the soft, flowing caramel inside the Caramilk bar.

This year for sure.

Enjoy 2012. Live it like the Mayans knew something we don't.