Someone once told me that how you spend New Year's Eve is indicative of how you'll spend the year. I spent the last hours of 2004 and first few of 2005 chugging margaritas in Atlanta, talking to a Quaker kid from Indiana who had recently moved to Georgia to work in the main office of Habitat for Humanity. I woke up fully clothed to find myself wearing three feather boas around my neck and the worst hangover of my life. I spent a lot of time hungover in 2005, but I never saw that Quaker kid again. The year before that I spent a peaceful evening at an Irish pub on a beach in Florida. I saw a shooting star just as the clock struck midnight. That was the year I landed my first "real" job and that was one of the few stress free nights I had that year.

I've been sick for the past week and will likely ring in 2006 from the glory of my couch with a few VitaminWater cocktails and some lame DVDs . Certainly not my best New Year's Eve, but not even close to being my worst. Like most people, I'll make a few resolutions. This year I want to learn to kayak and to play the guitar, I want to run a 5k and I want to move. I want new challenges; I want change. 2005 was a bad year for a lot of people and I'm not sorry to see it end. And while the new year won't bring a new beginning, I hope it brings better things.