Our New Year's Eve did not happen quite as expected. The plan had been to go our friends' Camille's and Michael's place for their New Year's get-together and from there move on to Lisa's and Richard's place for the rest of the evening. That's pretty much what happened, but not in the way we had planned.
Yesterday Theo simply would not nap. Jamie tried to get him to go and nap for about an hour and a half and I tried for about another hour. Neither of us were successful. It was quite frustrating, but Theo simply wasn't tired. Or if he was his body got the better of him. He was just to energetic and excited! Anyway, after that was done we went downstairs to play. Theo watched a bit of Harry Potter's Philosopher's Stone, a Mr. Ben episode, then dinner and then some Thomas the Tank Engine episodes - which is when he fell asleep. And he slept and slept from about 6:30 pm until 9 pm. It was amazing! Anyway, my brother arrived at about 6:40 pm to head out to the festivities. Jamie decided to stay home with Theo and would call us when Theo woke up to join us later.
My brother and I got back from Camille's and Michael's place at about 9:20 pm. Theo was awake and rearing to go to a party! Which is what we did. Minus Jamie who was really tired and decided to stay home. So off my brother, Theo and I went to Lisa's and Richard's party, which was great fun! Theo even managed to score the last cookie in the house, which he was really happy about! It was really great to see everyone. Even Mick and Tarn had made it with their little one!!!
At about 11:45 pm (yes, that is what time it was unbelievably!) Theo decided that he wanted to go home, so we did. We managed to ring in the new year with Jamie on the couch and then went to sleep at about 12:45 am (!!!)
All in all it was a nice night! Which my brother and I spent with Theo having fun at a party for the very first time! And then at home with Jamie! Surprizingly I did not take a single photo all night. For me that's unheard of when a camera is in reach, which it was!
In terms of having any New Year's resolutions; I have a few. Here is a list I will try and stick to throughout 2009.
1. Exercise and eat properly and loose some weight. I had a rough year and was not able to walk very far at all throughout the spring/summer/fall. I feel better now and really want to get into shape again - a shape that I like that is. :)
2. Be more patient.
3. Be more calm and focused. I'm usually ok with this - but, like others, I do have my moments.
4. This one is a secret.
5. Let no negativity affect my family - not me, not Jamie and most certainly not Theo! Absolutely none! No manipulations, no idiocy of whatever form, nothing of the kind will have room in our lives!!! This one should really be the first point in this list. But since my resolutions came to me in this order I will leave things as they are.
6. Make time for my friends. I'm already working on that one and it's going well. It has been really nice to reconnect with everyone!
7. Make time for Jamie and me. We're also already working on that one! It's great!
8. Be open to things - whatever framework/shape they come in. Be more flexible - adjust as is necessary - or even if it would just help a given situation...I really do try, but acknowledge that I need to work on this more.
This list must make me seem like a terribly negative person. I am not. I am just trying to be honest - mostly with myself really. In some ways I need to spell out the things that I do need to work on. But thinking about it in another way; I have a wonderful life. I have a wonderful, loving and caring husband, a wonderful little son who keeps our life happy and exciting and I have a really great job come to think of it. We are happy, healthy, have access to nutritious foods and have more than a roof over our heads, which we try to share with friends and family that pass through the city! We are lucky and that is what the real focus of our lives should be!
Well, this is it for my new year's resolutions....I may add more later, but these are pretty much the most important aspects in my life that I would like to work on or have begun to work on.
Happy New Year everyone!!!!
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At this point I'm also going to put together my review of 2008. It'll consist of the milestones and general information/events that I have read about/watched on TV/heard about from family this past year - some of it is silly, most is not...I think it's good to know what happened in the past 12 months world wide speaking...here it goes...
1. Gas prices skyrocketed in the middle of the year.
2. Finally there is a focus on the issue of climate change! Greenhouse emission, ecology awareness and high gas prices have led to the increase popularity of alternative energy source.
3. Heath Ledger died of an accidental prescription drug conflict/overdose. This is a definite loss to the movie world! His work as the joker in the Dark Night was absolutely phenomenal!
4. Barak Obama was elected president of the USA! He is the first African American to be elected president of the USA, which in itself is already pretty wonderful. However, many will be disappointed as one person cannot be everything to everyone. Let's hope that he can do some good though. Closing Guantanamo, getting the US troops out of Iraq and fixing the US health care system would be a start.
5. Sadly, Canadian troops continue to be present in Afghanistan.
6. More children were killed in school attacks in the USA. This is terrible.
7. Suicide attacks continue to kill Iraqi civilians. :( The US military presence also continues.
8. Guantanamo Bay continues to exist. Sadly so. However, the US Supreme Court decides in favour of Guantánamo detainees and rules, 5 to 4, that prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have a right to challenge their detention in federal court.
9. The Canadian government continues to fail to speak up for its citizens; whether in war torn areas, whether affected by natural disasters, or whether arrested abroad/arrested as child soldiers abroad. This is something our government should be ashamed of!
10. China attacks protesting Tibetan monks just prior to the Olympics taking place in Bejing. The world essentially again turns a blind eye. The Olympics go ahead as planned.
11. The 2008 Olympics take place in Bejing, China.
12. Uranium prospecting takes place in the Lanark region just outside of Ottawa. First Nations and Settlers alike are in opposition. The company (Frontenac Ventures) fights dirty and protestors are arrested and some detained for some time. What happened to looking out for Canada's citizens and their health as opposed to looking out for big business interests???
13. Elections in Zimbabwe take place. Morgan Tsvangirai, of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, says he won 50.3% of the vote in March's presidential election, defeating Robert Mugabe, who had presided over the economic collapse of the country. The Movement for Democratic Change wins a majority of the seats in Parliament. Mugabe refuses to concede. This eventually led to civil war and extreme bloodshed within the country. The world does not turn a blind eye, but does not effectively assist in resolving the situation either.
14. Nepal holds a historic election - the Maoist faction wins. This ends the Monarchy in Nepal.
15. Hezbollah and Government Supporters Battle in Beirut (May 7): Members of Hezbollah, a Shiite militia backed by Iran, block city streets to support a labor union strike and to fight against supporters of the pro-Western government in Lebanon. (May 9): Hezbollah takes control of large swaths of western Beirut, forces a government-supported television station off the air, and burns the offices of a newspaper loyal to the government. The government accuses Hezbollah of staging an "armed coup." The fighting is mainly sectarian, with Shiites fighting against Sunnis. (May 14): In an attempt to end the violence and the threat of a civil war, the government rescinds plans to shut down a telecommunications network run by Hezbollah and backs off attempts to dismiss a Hezbollah-backed head of airport security. In return, Hezbollah agrees to dismantle roadblocks that have paralyzed Beirut's airport. The decisions are seen as a major victory for Hezbollah. (May 21): After several days of negotiations, Hezbollah and the government reach a deal that ends the violence in Beirut and calls on Parliament to move toward electing Gen. Michel Suleiman, the commander of Lebanon’s army, president; the formation of a new cabinet, which gives Hezbollah and other members of the opposition veto power; and a discussion of a new electoral law. (May 25): Lebanon's Parliament elects Gen. Michel Suleiman as president, filling the position that had been vacant since November. Suleiman, the consensus candidate, is considered neutral. (source: http://www.infoplease.com/world/events/2008/may.html)
16. In the US - the California Supreme Court rules in favour of same sex marriage.
17. A cyclone devastates Burma and the military junta refuses outside help that is independent from the military's influence (i.e. all supplies donated must be provided to the junta who then supposedly distributes the aid). Enough said - it was a horrifying and sad situation for those not in support of the junta.
18. An earthquake kills about 68,000 people in China.
19. Polar bears are designated as a threatened species both in the US and Canada.
20. Israel and Hamas sign a truce which will not hold unfortunately. Later on in the year, the Israeli government continued to attack Palestine and kill Palestinian civilians! This is one of the more disgusting points of the list, if not the most disgusting one! I cannot understand how globally every nation effectively has turned a blind eye to the atrocities that are continuously committed by the state of Israel against the Palestinian civilian population!!!! And some people's tendency to blame the victim for the atrocities committed onto them is not ok!
21. U.S. Agrees to end immunity for contractors in Iraq (July 1): Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari says private security contractors, like Blackwater USA, whose employees killed 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007, will no longer be immune from Iraq's laws. The negotiations are part of a security agreement being worked out between the two countries. (source: http://www.infoplease.com/world/events/2008/jul.html)
22. After being held for nearly six years by FARC rebels, 15 hostages, including three U.S. military contractors and French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, are freed by commandos who infiltrated FARC's leadership.
23. Leaders of world's richest nations agree to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (July 8): At their annual meeting, members of the Group of 8, the U.S., Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada, and Russia, set goals to cut in half by 2050 the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the environment. Critics say shorter-term goals should have been set. (source: http://www.infoplease.com/world/events/2008/jul.html)
24. The US remove North Korea from their terrorism list.
25. Prime Minister Harper is re-elected. This was a disasterous day for Canada in my opinion!
26. In the US; Connecticut legalizes same-sex marriage.
27. A Saudi oil tanker, anchored about 480 miles off the coast of Somalia, is hijacked by Somalian pirates. this tanker was loaded with approximately two million barrels of oil, worth about $100 million.
28. Terrorists Launch Brazen Attack in Mumbai (Nov. 26): More than 170 people are killed and about 300 are wounded in a series of attacks on several of Mumbai's landmarks and commercial hubs that are popular with foreign tourists, including two five-star hotels, a hospital, a train station, and a cinema. Indian officials say ten gunmen carried out the attack that was stunning in its brutality and duration; it took Indian forces three days to end the siege. India's police and security forces were ill-prepared for such an attack, which many inside India are calling their own September 11. In fact, Indian sharpshooters were not equipped with telescopic sights, and therefore withheld firing out of fear of killing hostages. Deccan Mujahedeen, a previously unknown group, claims responsibility for the attacks. Pakistan officials deny any involvement in the attacks, but some Indian officials hint that they suspect Pakistani complicity. India has been hit by an increasing number of terrorist attacks throughout 2008. (source: http://www.infoplease.com/world/events/2008/nov.html)
29. Later in the year in the US, the state of California votes to outlaw same-sex marriage (Nov. 4): Voters narrowly pass a ballot measure, Proposition 8, that overturns the May 15, 2008, California Supreme Court decision that said same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. Many supporters of same-sex marriage blame the results of the vote on an expensive campaign by the Mormon church, which opposes gay marriage. (source: http://www.infoplease.com/world/events/2008/nov.html) This is a travesty!
30. Stephen Harper shuts down Parliament on December 4, 2008. Just seven weeks into his second term, in an attempt to stall a no-confidence vote, suspends Parliament until Janury 26, 2009. The move follows the formation of an alliance of three opposition parties, the Liberals, the NDP, and the Bloc Québécois, which will have enough seats to oust Harper's Conservative Party. A budget will be presented at the end of January 2009, which will determine how the coalition will respond. Now that Michael Ignatieff is leader of the Liberal party (Stephan Dion resigned in December), the coalition may fall apart.
31. FINALLY! Blackwater Security Guards Are Charged (Dec. 8): Five employees of Blackwater Worldwide are charged with 14 counts of manslaughter and 20 counts of attempted manslaughter. They were involved in the September 2007 shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisoor Square. The incident strained the relationship between the governments of Iraq and the U.S. (source: http://www.infoplease.com/world/events/2008/dec.html)
32. An Iraqi journalist throws his shoes at Bush (Dec. 14): At a news conference in Baghdad, a reporter for Al Baghdadia, a Cairo-based satellite television network, hurls his shoes at President Bush and calls him a "dog." The shoes narrowly miss Bush's head. (source: http://www.infoplease.com/world/events/2008/dec.html)
33. The global economy is in severe crisis and most states are experiencing a recession.
One might almost wonder if anything truly good happened this year...on a personal level the answer is definitely yes...globally speaking I'm not so sure that the list would be very long...
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