It is the new year, but for some reason it doesn't seem so "new" to me.

Maybe it is the way I ended the old year — with the flu. My wife, daughter and I hopped a flight to L.A. to visit family and enjoy some well-deserved R&R. Week 1 went swimmingly as we tooled around Disneyland, caught "Wicked" at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood, and walked enraptured between a setting sun and a rising moon on the Long Beach Pier.

Week 2 was altogether different. I spent the entirety lying on my brother's sofa, coughing up things from my childhood and mumbling some quasi-religious mumbo-jumbo while in a fever-fed, dehydrated stupor. Each day blurred into the next.

Maybe it is because my wife and daughter started the year so ... newly. On Monday, New Year's Eve, they went to the beauty salon and got the full spa treatment: hair, nails, shoulder massages, the works. When they came home and got out of the car, I barely recognized them.

Maybe it is the fact that there is so much left to do on my 2007 to-do list.

As I lay on the couch, my chores lay before me in full display. The screen door was ripped and in desperate need of repair, thanks to two over-excitable dogs. The shower leaked and splashed on the tile floor in exact cadence with my postnasal drip. And the front gate sagged despite my midsummer repair. It is hard to look forward to 2008 when you're not even done with 2007.

Maybe it is the fact that so little has changed for me over the last year. I am the same weight at the start of '08 that I was at the start of '07. I have lost a few more hairs, but I am not sure anyone else would notice the difference.

My golf swing has improved over the past year, but I am shooting the same scores. I have the same job, the same wife and the same daughter as a year ago.

No, not much has changed over the past year, and that's OK with me. Despite ending 2007 with the flu, my health is just fine. I may not be the prettiest piece of china on the shelf — there is some worn paint here and a chip there — but nothing a little Crazy Glue can't fix.

My to-do list will never be completed, so I should let go of that fantasy right now. Besides, I spend most my days behind a computer terminal. My to-do list is a welcome reprieve from a sedentary lifestyle. Intelligence is not only found between the ears, but also between the thumb and index finger. I like to keep my hands busy.

I know it is fashionable to complain about work, but I like my job and enjoy those I work with even if I do look forward to Fridays more than Mondays.

My wife and daughter remain the cornerstone of my life, and I can't imagine a day without them. I like where my golf game is at and enjoy myself whether I am shooting 85, 95 or 105.

They say change is constant, and this is especially true in our "out with the old, in with the new" world. But a little predictability never hurt anyone. Personally, I am looking forward to "more of the same." Some honest work, hugs and kisses from family and friends, and a low score now and then seem like the perfect ingredients for a very good year.

It worked for 2007; I do not see why it wouldn't work for 2008.

Michael C. DeMattos is a member of the faculty at the University of Hawai'i School of Social Work. Born and raised on the Wai'anae Coast, he now lives in Kane'ohe with his wife, daughter, two dogs and two mice.