Happy New Year

December 2005

 

 

            I have finally done it! It is still December, with 5 days left until the dawn of a New Year, and I have just marked the last item off my list of New Year’s. Never mind that the current year is 2005 and the list is from 1998, that some of the tasks were completed with no help of my own, or that if most problems were left alone they would resolve themselves. The success is still sweet and it is mine to claim.

            Here is a sampling of the items that were on my list, but now have a line through them indicating they have been taken care of or accomplished.

  1. Survive the change of the millennium. – Weren’t we all wrong about that one?
  2. Practice more patience with friends and family. – Patience comes with age, if it didn’t I would give up looking for things the minute we realized that we misplaced them once again. It also comes from spending too much time at the doctor’s office and realizing that no matter what, we will be seen on their time, not ours.
  3. Lose weight. It finally happened, but I can’t take the credit for this one either. I was on antibiotics for over 9 months. That in and of itself is an accomplishment, but the nausea and inability to digest food, left my body no choice but to lose the weight. (Doesn’t matter to me how or why it left – I simply say good riddance.)
  4. Continue to read and learn new things. – Once again this was accomplished at the hands of my doctors. New medicines mean reading the product warning labels to learn about the possible side effects, and how to skip over the million or so words that some medical writer decided were important enough to include, in 3.2 font size for my reading pleasure.)
  5. Have a number of articles published. I only recently crossed this one from my list and marked it as accomplished. I knew I had one story published in February 2005. I knew this because a friend sent me an e-mail congratulating me. After the e-mail arrived I ran out and purchased the publication my piece was printed in. But since this particular resolution said ‘articles’ in the plural form, I didn’t think one story would qualify. Two weeks ago I was gathering papers to put together a portfolio of my writing success. I could not find the original article published in February 2005 so I did a quick search on this website and found that they had also published an article of mine in March 2005. Where are your friends when you need them? Not one of them told me the article was in the paper. Guess next time I will have to do the checking myself.
  6. Keep better track of my tax deductible donations. My CPA always screams at me over this one. I now attend church with my CPA who makes sure I never make a donation in cash – all donations will be recorded on traceable checks.
  7. Work on keeping things organized and accessible. – The hurricane season took care of that also. I packed all of my valuable papers and jewelry early in the season this year and simply never unpacked. Didn’t see a reason too as before we could clean up from one hurricane there was another bearing down on us. All of the valuables are still packed in a suitcase, on the floor in my bedroom. (This also means I have not worn any of the jewelry in almost 8 months now. But I know where it is if I want to put it on.)
  8. Give the house a real cleaning from top to bottom. Thanks to the damage from the hurricane this happened only a few weeks ago. Sure it began as a simple cabinet replacement project but blossomed into a full grown demolition/reconstruction project. By the time it was complete, I had new cabinets, a new ceiling and new tile floors in most of the house. The cabinets begat the ceiling which begat a total washing of the walls and packing and unpacking of every item in the kitchen, dining area, living room and both bathrooms. And once clean and uncluttered who would want to put all that stuff back up. (Look for information about the upcoming yard sale to be held Spring 2006)
  9. Update my wardrobe. See resolution number 3. The antibiotics caused a weight loss of over 40 pounds, which in turn meant I literally owned nothing that would fit anymore. (The closet only stayed clean as long as it takes to bid, win and pay on e-bay.)
  10. Never make another New Year’s list of resolutions again. Didn’t see the use as the one from 1998 was a good one with nothing scratched off yet.

Now that I look back over the list, I realize that I can’t really lay claim to accomplishing any of these items. But the way I figure it is like this, I wrote the list and I drew the little lines through each item, so in some way I am responsible. I wish all of you a Happy New Year – I’m off to work on the resolution list for 1999.