She crows, "you want my happiness, but on your terms."

This weekend, busy as it was, gave me some time to think about my holidays.  More specifically about:

a) what will be my New Year's Eve plans? (i.e send this em-effing roller-coaster of a year out in style)

and; b) where oh where will I get away to at the beginning of January?

I figured out my trip first.  After doing some research on the cost of tropical getaways (far too much during peak season when I'm off work), my pal Heather and I settled on Washington DC since neither of us had ever been there.  We booked a flight on Porter airlines which I'm excited about.  Porter flies from the Toronto Island Airport, and I've never flown from there before.  My friend Fea, who is an avid traveler, loves Porter and assured me that this is going to be a life-changing experience for me! We also booked a super-nice hotel, and now all that's left to do is to figure out what to do while we're there.  (Flight + hotel ended up costing me about a third of what a tropcial getaway would!  I feel entitled now to some fine dining + shopping!)

After booking my trip, I ended up making my New Year's Eve plans.  I've never really enjoyed NYE because, ugh, I don't know, I just feel too much pressure to have an amazing evening.  I was talking to my friend Vern about doing something, and I figured out why not do what I love most?  And you all know what that is: a concert, of course.

I was hoping that the band Elliott Brood would be playing Lee's Palace as they had for the past few years (I went for NYE 2010), but they aren't.  A band called Young Empires are playing instead, and I'm pretty I was introduced to them in Kingston this summer when my friend's friend made her a CD with some of their songs on them.  I decided to check them out.  They are super fun synth-y dance rock and perfect for a NYE show at my favourite venue in the city!  Tickets bought!



With that show, I'll have gone to 28 shows in 2012 which is my all-time record.  I've seen most of my very very favourite bands/artists this year: John K Samson of the Weakerthans, Sloan, Stars, Los Campesinos!, Metric, Ben Folds Five, The Joel Plaskett Emergency, Hawksley Workman, Feist and Kathleen Edwards.  Seriously, that's pretty amazing, and I doubt I'll ever be able to top this year concert-wise.

In other weekend events, I saw a lot of friends this weekend and had some downtime too.  I feel that I'm in no way ready for Christmas yet, but I'll work on that.

Also, I'm now on book #51 of my book-a-week challenge for 2012.  I can't believe I'm going to make this happen!

Hope you all have pleasant Mondays.