Sunday, January 1, 2012

my anti-resolutions...

so today . . . is the first day of a brand new year. and the first day of a brand new month. AND the first day of a brand new week.

it just screams out for resolutions, doesn't it :)

i mean, that is kind of the ultimate trifecta of new beginnings. it is taking everything within me NOT to make any resolutions under these conditions. my ocd tendencies love the symmetry of it, but i know that making resolutions is a complete waste of time for me. i am the queen of good intentions, but when it comes to actually accomplishing things, let's just say there is some room for improvement...

and so, for the first day of 2012, here is a list of THE TOP TEN THINGS I AM NOT GOING TO TRY TO ACCOMPLISH IN 2012!

10. i will NOT try to exercise every day. it is never going to happen. i hate to exercise. i know it is good for me, but until exercise equals some sort of pay-off (and no, improved health apparently doesn't count in my world,) it will not be happening every day. now, if eating chocolate chip cookies was good for my health, i could probably commit to that! then again, maybe not. maybe i am just not programmed to do anything every single day... until i die...

9. i will NOT try to eat healthier. i've done that. the truth is, my eating habits have improved. but the truth also is, i love carbs and i tend to get a little cranky when i don't get them. so then i give in and eat chocolate chip cookies from del taco by the dozen or a whole tub of costco cream puffs in one day. i'm pretty sure that is really not good for me. so i've decided that no food is off limits any more. (except spinach. and squid. i'm pretty sure those foods will kill me!) i'll just try to eat whatever i want, but maybe not all at one time...

8. i will NOT watch less tv. i like to watch tv. my mom hardly watches any tv at all. i don't know how she does it! she says there isn't that much on that she enjoys watching, but my tivo is almost always busy recording stuff for me to watch. and there are so many choices! this morning i watched a show on the science channel called "how things are made." did you know that when they harvest the tiny peppers for tabasco sauce, they have to do it by hand? and before they pick a tiny pepper, they have to match it's color to a red stick that they carry around with them? i am serious, people!! and then, they put millions of those tiny peppers into wooden barrels and let them ferment for three years before they make them into tabasco sauce!!! who knew? and don't even get me started on how cheese graters are made...

7. i will NOT be on time for work. i've tried. it is impossible. i'm pretty sure that even if i lived in my car in the parking lot of my school, i would be late (and also smelly...) i am on time sometimes. i am even occasionally early. but i am done stressing while i sit at a red light, or worrying all the way to work about whether my time card will read 8:00 or 8:03 (or 8:12, but that doesn't happen too often.) because it doesn't seem to matter what time i get up, or what i have to do in the morning, i am almost always a few minutes late.

6. i will NOT blog every day. i would like to. and i know some of you would like me to, too :) i did it for a while. but now that i am walking the dogs and trying to cook dinner, there are days when i have to choose between blogging and getting into bed before midnight. (ok, i guess even when i wasn't walking the dogs and cooking dinner, there were still days when i had to choose between blogging and getting into bed before midnight. the difference now is that i've finally realized i need to sleep worse than i need to blog. which is unfortunate, because i like to blog more than i like to sleep!) don't worry though, i won't STOP blogging. ever. i just won't be doing it every single day. probably.

5. i will NOT try to solve everybody's problems. i want all the people i love to be happy and healthy. obviously! and so, when there is a problem, i want to fix it. i don't think that is unusual for a mom-sister-daughter-wife-friend. but i can't do it. even if i have a perfectly good solution, i can't make the people i love take my perfectly good advice. so this year, i am going to be saying "ok, God, i trust you with this" a lot more than i'm going to be saying "why don't you try this!" to my friends and family. it isn't going to be easy. i've been giving it a trial run for the last two weeks, and it isn't easy. sometimes i have to say it over and over and over again... and then staple my lips shut...

4. i will NOT mail christmas cards out. it has been years since i have actually mailed cards out anywhere close to christmas. it isn't that i don't want to communicate with people and share the joy of christmas--i LOVE getting christmas cards--it's just that i never seem to get it done! for one thing, every year it gets harder to find a card that expresses what christmas is all about AND has a pretty enough picture that i want to spend my money on it... and then there are all those decisions about who to send cards to... and writing a christmas letter that is informative without sounding whiny or braggy... (i know braggy isn't really a word, but it fit the pattern. and you know, snarky wasn't a word until i invented it, and now it is used everywhere! so maybe braggy will catch on...) and then actually going to the post office (which i hate almost as much as going to the dentist...) and yet, every year i think i will do it. and then i don't. and i feel so guilty...

3. i will NOT try to accomplish everything in one year. maybe i won't try to accomplish anything in one year! (ok, that isn't going to happen--i am too co-dependent on my lists to try not to accomplish anything. i am embarrassed by the number of list-making and organizational apps i have on my iproducts. i need to know i have a plan, even if i know i will never complete it...) i accomplished a lot this year. i thought that once i had made the move to the new house, and had purged a whole patio full of stuff, and was unpacked, that i would finally be done cleaning out and organizing my house. i thought i would finally just get to live in my house, knowing where everything was and able to find whatever i needed. but it didn't quite turn out that way... i'm still organizing and finding better places for things. and it doesn't seem to matter how much we do to the house, the list of things to be done continues to grow. so i am just going to have to wrap my brain around the fact that i will never be done with my "to do" list. ever.

2. i will NOT make any big changes. there were times when i thought 2011 was going to kill me. as i said yesterday, 2011 was all about change, and i hate change! i felt unsettled and off balance for most of the year. i had to adjust to a lot of new circumstances, and although many of them were actually good circumstances, you know how my brain works... and so 2012 is going to be the year of maintaining the status quo. i'm going to spend this next year settling into the way my life is now, with all of it's changes from the last year. i'm not going to be pushing forward, and hopefully i won't be falling back. in 2012 i'm just going to sit on the back of the bicycle built for two, and coast...

and the number one thing i will not try to accomplish in 2012...

1. i will NOT take my life for granted. i have friends who lost people they loved dearly this past year. i have friends who have battled with health issues. i have friends who have had to deal with difficult family relationships. i have friends who have been on the wrong end of downsizing. we don't live in a world full of warm fuzzies any more, and none of us knows what tomorrow is going to bring! but... i have a family who loves me more than i deserve. i have a steady paycheck (well, except for the summers...) i have a pretty cute roof over my head and more food than i need to eat. i don't have any debilitating health issues. i can pretty much do what i want to do.

and so in 2012, i'm going to! i'm going to call my mom and dad more often... wear flannel pajama pants around the house... go to the beach... smile more often at rollie... eat at new places... wear perfume... watch girly movies with diandra... wear my party dresses... spend more time on the patio with my kindle... buy fresh flowers... and learn to dance, all by myself...

...just because it makes me happy :)

2 comments:

Carroll said...

Good for you Julie. Even though I miss your blogs, I think your decision to not blog everyday is smart. Bechen ause....if you're doing it for yourself, that's one thing but if you're doing it to satisfy those of us who enjoy your blog, not a good reason. As far as your other resolutions, I couldn't live with that. Friday I had taken all the 2011 receipts, etc. out of the file cabinet to store until who knows when. Then because Sunday was the first I went ahead and paid what bills we had so they'd get to the proper people on time. So I think we have the same OCD problem but then too there's that "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" thing too. So you go for it and I'll keep stumbling along with my trying to be efficient. And by the way, I'm on my way to the gym. I called to see if they were open and they are so I'm off. Have a great day. Love you!

Anonymous said...

AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!!