New Year, New 'Tude

I'm not much on the resolution thing, never been able to keep one in my life, but I really am going to try to be more optimistic and hopeful this year.

It's been hard this past year, being optimistic, when you're struggling to pay the mortgage, and gas is $4 per gallon, and the utility company raises the rates 72%, the grocery bill skyrockets, and your Chinese kid thinks his favorite things like pomegranates and tomatoes (which now cost $5 each at the grocery store) grow on trees or bushes or something. (Wanna make Charlie's day??? Send him a Harry and David's box of tomatoes or pomegranates!)

But I'm really going to do a better job of it this year.

Gonna spend more time with my kids (when I can get them to spend time with me--I have to remember they have friends and lives separate from mine). Making progress on this one already, since Charlie is working on learning the driver's handbook with me, and has been demanding time from me every day to work on the next sections. Rick is a harder nut to crack, but I'll figure something out. It usually has to involve food.

Gonna spend more time with my parents (when I can catch them at home--for retired people, they sure are gone a lot!). They almost moved last year, and it scared me into realizing how much time with them I'd lose, so I'm going to try and get it all in now, because I know they are still planning on moving, it's just a matter of when.

Gonna get my house in order. The clutter is stressing me out, so my local Freecycle group is gonna have a reason to really love me now. Planning to scan all my files to CD and ditch the filing folders except for the most important originals, get rid of the desktop computer setup since I do everything on the laptop, hopefully get the money together to get the basement leak fixed and maybe even get the house on the market at some point if the economy recovers well enough to sell. Lots of plans in this regard, one small project at a time.

Gonna get more organized. Okay, I'm NOT going back to the OCD days when I alphabetized the cans of vegetables in the pantry (yes, really!), but I will admit the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction, and I'm losing my grip. Can't remember important events and assignments, and my oldest is starting to call me senile. This just has to stop. I forget how old I am, but it's too young to be senile.

Gonna be healthier. Notice I'm not using the word weight. I refuse to use the word diet. No numbers. But before I went to China, I was doing a good job of eating many raw foods and eating many small meals during the day instead of the traditional Big Three, and I felt good and was never hungry. That regimen got totally screwed up during those three weeks in China, and I've never quite gotten back to it. This ties back in with getting more organized, because it takes planning to have that kind and that much food with you throughout the day (and in my case, evenings at class too), but I'm going there. Also planning to resume my lunchtime walk around the campus I work on, which only took about 20 minutes, but fell by the wayside once I started needing lunch breaks to study for the killer classes I had. Might actually make a deal with myself to use the exercise bike in the basement on days that I skip the walking. No numbers, no end point, no pressure, just going to get healthier. It's easier to be optimistic when you feel healthy.

Okay, I know those things sound a lot like resolutions, but they're not, not really. They're just lifestyle changes that I think will make me happier and help me have a better attitude.

If anyone else wants to share a few resolutions, er, I mean lifestyle changes, hit the comments link. We'd love to hear yours and maybe adopt them, too.

Happy New Year, everybody!