Resolution

I hate New Year's Resolutions. I never keep them. Ever. Okay, I did make a NY resolution to quit smoking and it stuck. Twice. The first time I quit for two years and then I decided I could have one when I was drinking and then suddenly I was smoking again. A couple of years later, though, i decided enough was enough. I quit in January of 2002, and this January makes six years I've gone without one, which is more than I can say for a certain Creeker who would have had me beat by years if he hadn't given in to drunken nostalgia one fateful night in December of 2006. That is surely bad karma catching up with him for teaching me to smoke in the first place.

Blame others. That's what my family does.

Anyway, in the spirit of New Year's Resolve, here is my plan for things I'd like to do this year.

Open-Ended Nebulous Stuff:

Watch Less TV, Write More
Be more Patient, especially with the children
Not raise my voice as much with the children
Be more consistent with children's discipline, (in particular, Timeouts.)
Go Out More
Be more positive

Measurable Goals:
Lose the stupid weight already!!!!
Run at least 1 10k
Run a Half.
Do my first tri.
Complete three short stories that I am happy with and make sure other people read them, rather than hording them and telling myself I am not good enough.

The hard one here is the tri, because of the need to have real time on the bike, and that requires TIME. Time is definitely my difficulty, management-wise. I am amazed that people with children ever become serious athletes. (Steph and Nat amaze me, pretty much daily, with their dedication and time management skills.)

Okay, the letting people read what I write part is hard, too, because I am pretty self-conscious about it, and the first go-round did not go very well. I am going to bite the bullet, though.

Anyway, that's what's up for me this year. Make sure to ask me how I'm doing, so that I am embarrassed into action every once in a while. I have a funny feeling that this is going to turn into a "Todd picking his hangnails" situation. When Todd and I first started dating, I noticed he wore band-aids on his fingers a lot. I did not like that. Band aids are gross. So, he admitted that picking at his hangnails was a bad habit he would like to quit and for me to tell him if he was doing it in front of me, because sometimes he didn't even realize he was doing it. I don't think he realized back in '99 that he would still be sitting next to me on the couch in 2008, and I would still be telling him to stop picking at his hangnails.