For the first time since I've moved to Nunavut I have a permanent, full-time job. No more contracts, no more taking things on spec and hoping they become something permanent. I have a job, it's one I like with more responsibility than I've had before and I seem to be doing a well with it.

And finally, there was the travel. I got to go back to Newfoundland twice (one of them for a funeral, granted), a week in Florida, 10 days sailing around the Baltic followed by nearly a week in Scotland. We went to Greenland for the weekend, and I went to New York for a week, which ended up with me going to the New York Comic Con. And that's just the broad strokes. There were so many awesome moments in each of those trips.

--> So it was a good year. It started off awful, but it ended well. I'll miss it. But onwards and upwards, as they say.

I believe more in birthday resolutions than New Year resolutions these days. So what's the plan for year 43 on the planet?

1. Read more books. Seriously, I've fallen off the wagon on my book reading. Lots of newspapers, magazines and comics, but not so much with the books. So I need to get back to that, even if I have to make the switch over to ebooks because I'm running out of space for regular books. I think I might give more biographies a try.

2. Write more. The first novel is probably dead, but I have a bunch of freelance writing that I need to do, the blog could use another kickstart or even if I start writing short stories or something. I should be keeping a journal of my travels. I think I'm going to regret not writing down more of what I did this past year. It feels like my writing muscles have seriously atrophied over the past couple of years. Time to jump start that a bit.

3. Shift from losing weight to maintenance. There's a real drive and a sense of purpose that goes with losing weight. It's nice to step on the scale and see you're down two pounds. For 43, the goal is to find satisfaction that my weight is pretty much the same, give or take a pound, week in and week out. Not as much satisfaction, but quite necessary.

4. I read in the past year that you only have so much energy in the run of a day to make effective decisions. After a certain point, you're run down and you make bad choices. Also, that too many of us squander that energy on stupid decisions. President Obama is apparently a big believer in this, which is why he tends to wear the same clothes and doesn't get involved in deciding what he would like to eat. He's saving his energy for the big decisions. As he should.
--> I think in the past year a lot of my energy has gone into trying to change my exercise and eating habits. I like to hope that's going to fall into routine this year, so I won't need as much energy to focus keeping myself on track. So 43, I'd like to find a new place to focus that energy. Not sure where yet. Maybe on my writing or maybe on something completely unexpected. But I'd like to make smarter decisions.

So there we go...four things. I think that's doable. Check back in a year and I'll let you know how it worked out.