2012.

The champagne has been uncorked, the ball has dropped. 2012. Another year over, a new one just begun.

It's been just under two years since I last posted anything on my blog, but over the past few days a couple of people have mentioned that I should get back into writing. A two year writer's block is quite a feat to overcome, so you'll have to bear with the poor grammar, incomplete sentences and lack of focus.

2011 has come to an end. Reading through my last New Year's post at the beginning of 2010, all I can think about the fact I thought 2010 would be a year of change is this: You haven't seen nothing yet, Matt. 2011 was indeed a year of change.

2010 brought ten new fingers and toes. 2011 brought another set. 2010 brought a new job working for the Mennonite Central Committee in their Vancouver thrift store. 2011 brought a transfer from British Columbia to Ontario, plus increased responsibilities at the thrift store I now manage. As a result of these two major changes, we're now living in a new place, with a new job, and two children. It was definitely a challenging year, and so in some ways I look forward to 2012: a year of routine.

It's kind of sad thinking that this will be a year of routine. Much of my blogging and life over the years before the need for a steady income have been anything but routine. In some ways, I miss that. But in more ways, I don't. Perhaps it's a pro / con thing, where the joys and challenges of marriages and parenting outweigh the joys and challenges of the non-routine existence. To be honest, I don't think I could have handled much more of the non-routine existence. And as much as I have written about my lack of passion, perhaps I have just naturally gravitated towards those things that I do desire, and having a family of my own is one of them. So is having a steady income, though at times the former necessitates the latter.

That's not to say that I wouldn't still love to go on an impromptu road trip across the country, or a sudden train trip up north. But those things will come. Over the summer we drove from Nova Scotia back to Ontario with two kids and, well, the whole adventure of a roadtrip is pretty well over when you have to stop every hour to deal with something going on in the back seat. Sigh.

Did I, five years ago, think I would be living back in Ontario working in a thrift store and looking forward to routine in five years time? Definitely not. Is this the best place for me? Definitely so.