Trente-et-Un: Looking Forward

I hit 31 years of age this past weekend, so now it's time to look forward...

I only have a few goals for this upcoming year. The big-ticket item is that Cam and I are planning to buy a house within driving distance of my workplace in Mississauga. We are considering living as far away as Burlington or Milton, which would involve a minimum 45 minutes of driving to and from work each weekday. Closer would be better, of course, but prices and property taxes in this area are much higher than they would be in London, ON. We would be ready to buy a home now if we were still living in London but we'll need a few more months of saving for the downpayment here. We're strongly considering building a new home, actually, since it may be cheaper to do that in the end.

Ideally, we'll get something in a nice neighbourhood with a fabulous kitchen, ensuite bathroom and a private yard. A big kitchen is key since we are currently in a nice-yet-small basement apartment and the kitchen is sooo tiny. We need a house that will be big enough for raising kids in the future but not so large that it's a pain to manage and finance. Y'know, the average starter-family home. As long as it's not a fix-er-upper 'cause I'm not the handy-man type. ;)

That's our main goal for the upcoming year. Other than that, we have a two-week road trip planned for the East Coast of Canada this summer and then in a few years we want to take a major trip through Vietnam-NewZealand-Australia. Cam and I are practicing our French for our travels through Quebec this summer and then I'll have to figure out how this Vietnamese language works.

Much of my life before marriage was focused on church and worship/music ministry. When Cam and I were preparing for our wedding and our marriage, I consciously decided to step back from all of that. Cam and I do attend a church nearby on Oakville intermittantly (The Meeting Place) and that's fine. No pressure, no schedules, no time away from my wife. That being said, I do get a strong urge to pick up a dijembe or grab a conga and do some percussion once in a while. I also miss singing, playing piano and writing music. I think that I might be happy to wait until we have our new house and I can move my old piano from my parents' place. Simply worshipping with God privately sounds really good to me right now...

As for my career, things are going extremely well. With more than a year under my belt now, I've gained my footing at OSL Marketing and I'm starting to pursue my personal career goals. It remains the best job that I have ever had (and I've had some good ones) and my managers give me plenty of room to learn and try new things. I'm completely comfortable with VB.NET website development and I'm beginning to help out in other areas of our projects. I used to be a director at another software company, overseeing a team of programmers and software testers, and we'll see if I can get the chance to something similar on specific projects this year. Seeing my work advertised in stores and printed on food packages is still quite thrilling!

The rest of life will be spent with numerous visits with family and our close friends. There's a couple of weddings on the horizon and a camping trip or two. Throw that all together with my hobbies of comics and movies and it'll be good times. And as I've said before: The fact that get to share all of these experiences with my beautiful and amazing wife makes everything better!