2012 Resolutions

Each year since 1989 my family has made resolutions.  We wrote them down, and I've kept them all these years (except I lost a year somewhere).  They are now computerized and when we are not together for the holidays I make sure to email everyone to collect their new resolutions.  It is a cool thing to have as we can see when people joined our family and when family left us.

Some of them were insightful: 

Connie - 1990 - To get out of everyone's face without resorting to suicide.  I want everyone to live his/her life without my interfering, and I want to live my like without interfering (i.e. no lending money for cars, taxes, marriages, graduations).

Aunt Helen - 1993 - Not to be so judgmental about other people's foibles.

Rusty - 1998 - To get Sultan's Run back on its feet and to spend more quality time with my boy.

Some of them hilarious:

Russ - 1990 - To eliminate all this chaos!

Connie - 2008 - To try and keep all of my blood in my body flowing through my veins and arteries like it is suppose to be...(pauses to wipe up blood dripping down her leg).

Maya - 2006 - Well I have to get those friggin' pictures done!  I'll resolve to try to relax more with Anya and to not get so uptight when things don't go well.  Added later:  Forget that relaxing crap.  I resolve to go out one or two times a month sans Anya.

Rusty - 1999 - To start a barnacle collection.  To become very close friends with Bill Gates.  Take a class on Presidential relationships and their effect on a nation.  Switch from Fruit of the Loom to Hanes.  Grow as much hair on my head as I do on other parts of my person.  Grow a money tree in the back yard since Austin thinks we have one there anyhow.

Some of them gave us great quotes:

Tom - 1994 - To make music more a part of my life.  "I am haunted by the absence of music."

Russ - 1994 - "Hell, no, I don't have a resolution!"

Helen - 2001 - "The same as last year's...not be so judgmental.  I'm not sure I'll ever get that one resolved."

Some years some people didn't participate and some years everyone did.  Most of the time the theme was the same.  Many times we revisited resolutions from past years.  About five years ago we began keeping count on whether we had kept our resolutions.  Most often we hadn't.

My resolutions for 2012 are as follows:

1. To "work on" not chewing my nails.  I liked the "work on" quote because that way it is an ongoing process as opposed to  just quitting cold turkey. 
2. To lower my cholesterol.  This one, in looking back through the years, was another one of mine a few years back.  Unfortunately, it is high again and thus I am working on it.
3. To find time and do things only for myself.  I added this one with the cholesterol since I check in on my resolutions every two months and that cholesterol one will be a tough one to track...
4. To do a better job of keeping on top of my SAHMly chores.  If I could just get back to my days of following the FlyLady...
   
5. To have a monthly theme song and believe it.  Sort of like the lawyer on Aly McBeal who believed his theme song was one by Barry White.  I like the idea of that, but there are so many songs out there I thought I'd have a new one each month.