“Well, on that note…”

The subject line is what Dad said to Vero and I when we were leaving for Ottawa after spending Christmas with the family up North.  He said it while passing a treble clef sign to hang on the wall that we received for Christmas.  We all had a good laugh.  I think everyone loves to pull out some one-liners like that.

***warning: disjointed thoughts all abound…is it the new year, or is it the new beer?***

It’s New Year’s Eve and I’m getting ready to go out but I felt the need to chat about the year gone by and Christmas holidays.  By any other measure, the trip was the same old success…get to visit family and friends, get to have a few beers along the way, get to revisit old haunts.  But we also had some new adventures as well…15 hours to get to Kapuskasing was a first…this was due to not one, but two accidents even before we hit North Bay.  All I care about is that we made it home safe.  I hope everyone else did as well.  We had a great time spent in Kap and Hearst and I loved playing on the open mic night with Randy, John, Mike, Lynn and especially Maureen.  It’s a fantastic feeling to sing along with your sister and I don’t think I’ve ever said that to her in person before.  If only I had my trusty binder by my side, I could have probably given John and Randy a two hour break!

As I look back on 2012, it’s hard to pinpoint specific events and that was the original intent for this blog…I have a horrible memory and I wanted to have a diary of everything that happened in my life.  But now it is somewhere where I drop in from time to time and jot down my current thoughts.  There’s nothing wrong with that I suppose.  I have a solid five years of entries to show my grandchildren “Hey, this is what your grandfather was about.”  It also fuels my fire to write, but I feel that fuel has been taking over in the past few years to write music.  I feel that I have written a few songs that I am proud of, some that don’t make the cut, and some that just need a little more work.  That’s the classic life of a songwriter of I suppose.  I have challenged Troy to embark on a songwriting challenge and write a song a month for the next year to see what we come up with.  I don’t care if they all suck.  I care that I try.

I have taken piano lessons since September and I’m proud of what I have accomplished.  Have I practiced as much as I should have?  Hell no.  In fact, I’m scared to go back to lessons considering I have had the last month to practice and only have tinkered a bit.  But I don’t care…I’m glad that I have made use of the instrument that Vero bought for me a few years ago to build up our chamber of music.  Next up: The kazoo!

2012 has been an incredibly trying year for a lot of family and friends, including ourselves.  Vero and I both were ‘affected’ by the potential of job losses at work.  Some of our friends lost their jobs, some of our family lost their jobs, but some of us made it through and we’re grateful for that.  Did we end up with what we want in the end?  Maybe not…I definitely did as I love my job, but some others just don’t have that chance in life.  It’s hard to feel lucky when we jump through one hurdle victoriously only to end up in another hurdle to overcome.  The thing is, we just have to constantly evaluate what’s important in our life…the most important thing to me in my life are the people within it.  I love going into work just to sit down for my first 15 minutes and respond to emails because I know someone is depending on it, or is seeking my opinion.  I then love chatting to whoever is around and basically treating anyone at work as I would a friend or family…finding out what they are up to in life, teasing them about something ridiculous that they did and offering support when it’s needed.  There isn’t many people that can say the people they work with are like family…I think I started thinking about this when my father and mother retired and I realized they spent more hours with the people they worked with than their own family (not by their own choice!)  I would be remiss to not point out that I actually love the work I do as well and I feel that I am making a difference in people’s lives.  There’s not many people that can say that.

I also cherish my time outside of work…it’s my most important time of my life…whether it is making beer with friends, debugging a faulty hot tub motor for an entire week while freezing my ass off before the giant winter has set in (and making triple daily phone calls to Dad in the process “Hi Mom, how are you…is Dad there?”), or catching up on some TV watching (which I’ve basically realized had taken a standstill to my piano lessons!)  Speaking of taking a standstill to piano lessons, JF, John, Martin and I got together one time in 2012 to play together as a group and it was amazing.  Did it happen again?  No.  My life was way too busy to get into it again.  Especially with piano lessons.  Will it happen again? Definitely.  The feeling was electric in the room.  John is a fantastic drummer AND music connoisseur and JF can outplay any lead guitar player we throw at him.  I’m still disappointed we never went to see Roger Waters that one night at a bachelor party in the summer and he was playing a few hours away in Quebec City!

Of course, people are reading this wondering when I’m going to talk about my lovely wife Vero.  In August, we wed and it was fantastic.  Up in Hearst, ON, it ended up being everything we dreamed about.  I secretly loved that it went down to five degrees because everyone out of town got a taste of what it is to live up North!  All kidding aside, Vero planned, double-planned and triple-planned this event to the nth degree and it went off without a hitch.  While she is sure is determined some times (read: tete de mule), it pays off in the end for the perfection she aims for.  I look back to the summer and still feel that this is the wedding that we both wanted and we both made happen along with some significant help from our family and friends.  But we did it on our own rules.  I’m proud of that and I’m proud that it adhered to the same principles of our current parties: Make sure everyone has a great time.  I love my wife and as I’ve said before…this is just another event in our lives.  I’m not discounting the seven years before that.

I’m excited for some future plans we’ve set out.  We’re planning to hit up Australia in September (which was diverted due to job cuts last September) and Vero is currently planning a trip with her Dad in Spring 2014.  Of course, people ask when/if children fall into our plans in the future.  Of course they do…just be patient.  Many things to accomplish (such as the art of woodworking which is a personal goal in 2013).  We’re also planning a complete bathroom renovation in February.  I must admit that while I feel a bathroom is fine with a toilet and a shower, the shower just isn’t up to snuff so “out it must go!”.  But in the same breath, Vero feels strongly about other elements so I feel the entire thing may be transformed come end of February!

What does 2013 offer us?  Well, unless the Mayans were off a little and the world is going to end in 2013, there’s a slew of weddings to go to (when will it end?), maybe a video project to finally be completed (our music video chronicling the great white north excursion in the song “705”) and I suppose we should plant a tree or two.

One final thought before I pass it off to New Years’s wishes…something that really struck me this holiday season…

We had Melissa’s husband Jeff stay with us on Christmas Eve as she had to have an operation on her appendix on in Kapuskasing on Christmas Eve.  I can only imagine what it must feel like to have to drive 16 hours up to Hearst only to have your appendix rupture the next day and then they have no surgeons in Hearst so you have to go by ambulance to Kapuskasing.  While Kap is a fantastic town, it’s still a hospital room next to some lady hacking her lungs out.  I am not one to dwell on misfortunes so I made the best of the situation and offered to take Jeff under our wing for the night and spread some Christmas cheer.  I brought him to the Townsons who offered us some amazing festive cheer and then we headed off to our house.  This reminded me of what Christmas, and more importantly, what my family (and the Townsons) are about.  I don’t even think that Mom flinched when I mentioned in church that Jeff would be staying with us that night.  I felt bad for not giving her the heads up, but at the same time, I think she understood that and did not mind too much.  A bed was set up for him and the famous Palmer family cheer was spread out to the all-encompassing family.  I feel that the Palmers are like some organism that just envelops everyone they meet and makes it one of their own…I’m talking about all the Palmers…and if you have met any of us, then you are a Palmer as well.  You know what I mean…countless tales have been told of how my parents are the coolest there ever was.  Maureen and I aspire to be those people who welcome anyone with open arms into their house and make them feel comfortable.  This is what we are made of and I don’t think we would settle to have anyone amongst us that didn’t act like that.  I personally aspire to be what my uncles, aunts, parents, grandparents and whoever else have been associated with the family…I aspire to be what they are…inviting to all.  Jeff appreciated the night spent with us and enjoyed the fact that he could shuffle off to bed when he was deadbeat tired after looking after his wife in the last day or so.  Sure, it was a shitty time for them…but people get through that.  I think Melissa appreciated that we could take Jeff int our house instead of having him in some old hospital room.  Melissa was up and at ’em a few days later when we visited for an excellent brunch with Michel, Carole, Miguel and Stephanie.  I also managed to sneak in a well deserved nap at the same time.  That’s what family is about as well…accepting everyone around them, no matter what their faults (in their eyes) may be…especially a lone soldier just wanting to catch a few winks while the guys go out and go on the ski-doo.  🙂

I want to thank my family for welcoming Jeff into the house during Christmas.

Was 2012 challenging?  Hells yes.  But I say throw whatever you got at me in 2013 because I’m always going to emerge with a smile on my face.

I don’t care if you’re with a loved one watching the clock strike midnight or with a giant group of people tonight…reflect on the year you’ve had and see the joy you’ve had.  Talk about it…tell someone three things you loved about the past year.

Also, it doesn’t hurt to phone whoever the heck you want at the stroke of midnight.  They’ll never get mad.

Well on that note…