New Years Resolutions

This year there are just 2 resolutions - and neither of them involves getting fit or any variation on that theme ;-)
1. Live simply
2. Be organised

Thoreau said that he had 3 chairs in his hut on Walden Pond - 1 for solitude, 2 for company, 3 for society. Since all our possessions are in a storage shed in Perth now, and we are likely to buy a tiny dump of a house this year, I plan to vet every item that crosses the threshold for usefulness or beauty. Having spent so much time in other people's houses and apartments as we travelled this last 6 months, I am pretty keen on having just the essentials for my kind of living and entertaining in my kitchen. Kind of like what we had the first time we moved to Perth (and didn't have the benefit of a corporate relocation company packing up our entire house for us).
I also plan to try to rid my life of unnecessary plastic and paper. Harrison's school lunches will be an opportunity to try to provide simple good food without plastic wrap, additives and processing as far as possible. The Bento laptop lunch box is my inspiration. I'm going to make 2 dozen cloth napkins to use instead of hundreds of paper serviettes this year (a la Crate and Barrel's).
And I plan to make sure my work and home spaces are organised (a place for everything), uncluttered, and peaceful. The label maker is going to go into overdrive!

Going home

In order to get home from BC we, very logically travelled across to the other side of Canada, down to Boston, before making a U turn and going to San Francisco. In Vancouver we saw our first snow fall - and Harrison made his first snowballs. In Montreal there was HEAPS of snow, and Harrison made his first snow man. Then in Quebec there was still more snow, and we left magic reindeer food out in the snow outside our condo to help Rudolph and co find their way to our place on Christmas Eve. We went toboganning (seriously fun and seriously fast), Harrison and Simon both had a day of skiing at Mont St Anne, and they also went outdoor iceskating. We found out what cold really is walking around in minus 28 degrees.
Boston got snow while we were there too... including on our day trip to Walden Pond where Simon proposed 12 years ago. A little different with 2 kids this time! Marg and I chose Boston's coldest morning for our walking culinary tour of Little Italy (which was just fantastic).
San Francisco is positively warm (20 degrees), with exciting things like flowering plants instead of snow covered pine trees. It's a good way for us to gradually acclimatise on our way to the heat and humidity that awaits us in a few days. We've all got buns of steel from walking up and down San Francisco's multitude of steep, steep hills. We spent the day riding cable cars yesterday, in between walking up Telegraph Hill and down the Filbert steps. Cable cars must be the most inefficient and noisy form of public transport possible, but they are still pretty cute, and they are a good way to beat a few of those hills. Marg and I splurged on dinner at Greens vegetarian restaurant (very famous). The food was just exquisite. These guys know their way around vegies!