Years come and years go and I’ve never really been one to make resolutions. Besides the fact that resolutions are broken more often than not (and used an a excuse, it feels like, for end of year libations. Meaning you can smoke and drink and eat like a pig all through the holidays because your going to resolve to quit smoking, drinking, and eating like a pig), I also try and spend as much time as I can trying to be a general, all-round good person. Sure I smoke more than I should and I get drunk and turn into a over passionate loudmouth but, hey, we all have our “things”.

That being said, I spent the last half of 2011 taking a good, hard look at a few aspects of North American life in general and what I saw didn’t really surprise me per say, but for some reason it felt like a splash of cold water in the face.

Rather than just list off my realizations, I thought it would make more sense to list the things I want work on this year.

One: Eat as whole and as local as possible.

I realize there are some foods we cannot get locally. I mean, there is no one around Ottawa farming salmon, but I want to cut back on relying on food that is:

1. distributed by mega corporations
2. requires a huge carbon footprint to get to me
3. heavily processed

In today’s world I know there are certain foods and ingredients for which the second point will be impossible, but the first point should be a little easier. We have a plethora of local growers/farmers/cheeses etc. I see no reason to not support them rather than Mega Corp, Inc.

As for the third point, our family has recently been enjoying food that does not contain a list of ingredients that I cannot pronounce. Personally, I don’t want to fill my body with chemicals; preservatives, additives, artificial whatever and I don’t want to eat food that is made pretty much entirely out of corn. I also don’t want my kids eating this stuff. Tara and I are working on getting the kids hooked on good food early on. Hopefully it sticks with them.

As a side note, this has lead to me turning away from the standard snacks of potato chips and the like when I’m hungry between meals. I look for other thing to tide me over… and trust me, it ain’t fuckin’ easy at first. It can, however, be done.

Two: Eat more vegetarian/vegan meals.

I do love the taste of a good steak. And roasts. And chicken… but in the end there are two things which make me want to cut back on the amount of meat I consume.

The first, of course, is health. You simply can’t eat meat seven days a week and expect to be a healthy person. You especially can’t eat cheap, heavily processed meat seven days a week and expect to be healthy. This leads me to the second thing…

Yes, local, grass fed, pastured meat is more humane and healthier but allow me to be selfish and say that it has spoiled me taste wise. Holy hell does beef, pork, and chicken taste good when it’s been raised properly, respected, and allowed to live its life as it was supposed to; eating what it was meant to, roaming though the fields in the fresh air and sun… I no longer have any desire to cook and eat meat that was mass produced; animals that spend their lives eating corn, living in the dark or wading in their own shit, or filled to the tits with growth hormones then killed, packaged up in styrofoam and plastic wrap and sold at Wal-Mart. No thanks.

Yes, local meats are more expensive – way more expensive in some cases – but with that price comes an appreciation. When you pay $15.00 for a pound of local bacon made from pastured pork, you savour it. You spread it out over multiple meals. You don’t cook and eat the whole fucking pound in one sitting like you would with the package of bacon you spent $2.99 on at a discount grocery store.

Call me uppity, or a hippy or whatnot. I don’t really care. I’ll spend $15.00 and buy that one pound of really excellent bacon rather than $15.00 on three or four pounds of crap. One: I’m supporting local farmers. Two: I’m not eating shitty, hormone laden, mass produced meat. Finally (and this is the big one): I’m eating less meat period.

I’m also going to look into cutting back my dairy intake. First step: look into cutting back on coffee (wayyy back), and using, for example, frothed coconut soy milk and maple sugar instead of half and half and white, cane sugar.

The real hard part will be cheese … I’m not sure about giving that up because, honestly, I fucking LOVE cheese.

Three: As with food, try not to rely on big, mega corporations for other “stuff”.

I want to make stuff if it can make be made: soap, bread, pasta (clothes? I know I have an idea for a canvas jacket rolling around in my head, but could I actually do this? May be a little far fetched).

For purchases, especially big items that there is no way in hell I can possibly make by hand, I will spend time researching and spend a few extra dollars to buy products that last and last and last.

I will not compromise. I will make sure what I buy is exactly what I want/need.

I will refuse to feed the gaping maw of “industry” by spending my hard earned money on throwaway, cheap, plastic shit. I will buy a new safety razor and stock up on blades (even better I may try and learn how to use a straight razor) rather than buy another huge whack of Mach 3 blades every other month (I mean, how many fucking blades do I need on a razor?).

In the kitchen, I will use wood, stainless steel, cast iron and glass rather than plastic/polycarbon/synthetic whatever. I can also get most of this stuff locally; besides farmers, we have local designers and artisans. I want to look them up and give them my business.

Electronics… I realize this is a hard one as modern electronics are, by their very nature, throwaway. Every product has a better one coming out in a few months. These products also do not last. The idea here is to avoid this as much as possible. I need to find what fits me, what lasts and what has the least impact environmentally. I’m not including work here as what I need to use is dictated by them. Personally, I want the devices I use to be able to do all the things I do for hobbies (art, writing, music, reading), low on power, highly recyclable and be able to last and last. Luckily I’ve already found this device (iPad) and I’m sticking with it. I honestly don’t think I’ll be purchasing any more laptops/tower computers for my personal use.

Four: Getting here, there, and everywhere.

I didn’t get my drivers license until I was 35. I never needed it. I just biked and walked and relied on public transportation*.

Now I drive. I drive a lot. And I’ve turned into something I promised myself I never would be: one of “those” people who drive to the corner store.

I need to stop this. I have a fairly decent bike. Why the hell am I not riding it? It needs a tune up, sure, and a new crankset. Past that, I need to get on the thing more than twice a month.

We have a kick ass bike trailer. Why the hell does it only get pulled out once every couple of weeks once the snow is gone?

The van needs to be used for the big shit only: family road trip vacations, the jaunts to Costco with the kids in tow, moving furniture. Heading to the LCBO up the street for a bottle of VQA to go with dinner? Walk or, if I’m in a hurry, take the bike.

I also need to run more. Tara and I took up running in March 2011 and we both love it. In the past year I’ve completed three, 5K races and, at one point, came close to hitting a 5 minute kilometer. Why don’t I run more?

Other than the weeks leading up to my first 5K I’ve been a lazy runner and I don’t really know why. I enjoy it immensely. I need to get back this and I will.

* Public transportation in Ottawa sucks ass. I will only get on a bus if I’m going out to drink heavily and don’t feel like dropping a huge chunk of coin on cabs.

Five: General, all-round, chilling out.

I need to stop really caring about stuff that simply does not matter.

I spend a large amount of time getting worked up about things like technology (iOS vs Android for example), or what other people think about political issues (reading news site comment sections) and it doesn’t add anything to my life.

Simply put, while I have my preferences and beliefs in life, I need to stop caring about what other people think about that and just, well, be me. Sure, it’s nice to have decent conversations with other people about interests, there is no need to to expose myself to stupid arguments for no reason at all. I’m refusing to take the bait on things like “Keep Christ in Christmas”.

I will not look for things to bother. I’ll just plow on and try and be a general, all round good person.