A Resolution I Believe In

It’s that time of year again – time to start thinking about your resolutions for the coming new year. I’ve gotta say, after the last 2 years, I for one, am cautiously optimistic with my resolutions this year. Of course, I’ve never really been a resolutions kind of gal, but I’ve finally found a resolution I can get behind. And, this time, I’ve pretty sure I’m going to stick with it all year long.

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Let The Countdown Begin!

Well, it’s the final week of 2020 and almost a year since we started on our journey of frustration, confusion, boredom, angst, and trying not to go bankrupt. We’ve come a long way. We’ve learned things. We’ve adapted. We’ve grumbled and complained. We’ve cried. And cried some more. We’ve prayed. But, above all else, we’ve carried on.

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Because I Love Fireworks

There’s nothing like a good pyrotechnics show. I’m not sure where these videos were taken, but . . . wow!

Enjoy!

Until next year – stay safe, be kind, choose happiness.

Word of the Day: Soutane

Fun fact about me: Seeing fireworks always makes me smile.

Original post by Jansen Schmidt, December 2015. Video courtesy YouTube.

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Happy UnChristmas

Photo courtesy Google Images

I don’t know about you, but I like to start the new year with a clean house, free of holiday debris and quickly-getting-stale cookies. January 1st is like a clean slate to me, a time to create another year, hopefully better than the ones before.

I make efforts to de-Christmas my house starting New Year’s Eve, culminating in a final big rush of cleaning and laundry on New Year’s Day, so that on January 2, I’m ready to start putting new stuff on my clean slate.

How about you? Do you like to prolong Christmas into the new year or start the new year unadorned with holiday glitz? There’s no right answer, so feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below. I love to hear from my readers.

Word of the day and fun facts about me will return next year.

Happy New Year!!

Original post by Jansen Schmidt. Photo courtesy Google Images.

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New Year’s Resolutions. Good idea or not?

So here it is – 2012!

Happy new year to my loyal followers and welcome to newcomers. I hope your winter holidays were safe and enjoyable. Now let’s get down to some serious business and start the new year right.

New year, new resolutions.  Today we start our diets, we are resolved that we will lose those 10, 20, 30 pounds of holiday reveling. We will go to the gym more often, we will condition our bodies for that marathon we’ve always said we would run. We are done shopping, we will save money. We will volunteer more at our children’s youth activities, in their classrooms, at the homeless shelter. We will finally clean out the garage, our junk drawers, the attic. We will, we will, we will!  But the real question is – for how long?

My resolution has been the same for the past three years – I will not make any resolutions. That way I’m not letting myself down when I stop dieting, stop going to the gym, stop training for the marathon, take one box of old junk from the overstuffed garage to goodwill and call it quits. I know, that’s a cop out. But the reality of it is, several years ago I decided to make more “realistic” resolutions, ones I could actually achieve and therefore feel good about myself. Well, I realized in July or August of that year, that I wasn’t really sticking to my resolutions, I was simply enforcing my habits. If something is a habit, you don’t need to remind yourself to do it. Habits are not resolutions.

So what is a resolution? According to Webster’s New Lexicon Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language, a resolution is: The quality of not allowing difficulties or opposition to affect one’s purpose. Hmm. Okay. That said, why do people really give up on or forget about their resolutions? My answer – I become lazy. There are no difficulties preventing me from not stuffing that chocolate bar into my mouth, unless it’s a two pounder that I’m trying to eat all in one mouthful. No one prevents me from going to the gym. There is no opposition to me sitting down in the chair and writing 1,000 words a day. So why is it so hard to stick to the resolutions?

It’s psychological. We psych ourselves out about it. We are so overly adamant that we will do heroic things, that endorphines actually race through our body and pumps us up. We feel fantastic! Nothing will deter us. Then along comes January 15th and we slip a little bit, but we make excuses, like we just need a day off. Then February 1st rolls around and we have to think long and hard about what it is we were supposed to be doing better this year. When we can’t remember, the same adrenaline gushes around in our bodies, frantically looking for justification as to why we quit running, dieting, writing. That adrenaline spikes our nervous system to extreme stress levels and now we feel like horrid lazy bums so we might as well just eat what we want in front of the t.v. and be happy.

Hey, I understand. I’m not here to judge. It’s too dark and cold to be running anyway. It’s not safe and we’ll probably catch pneumonia. We can’t let that one lonely slice of chocolate cake go to waste, after all there’s children starving in India. Sure, we maybe didn’t write 1,000 words today, but hey, we sure thought about the plot and character arcs a lot, that counts for something.

Here’s my advice folks. Slow down, breathe. Enjoy the little things along the way. Have dessert once in a while. So you don’t run a marathon, or lose 20 pounds. Are you healthy and happy? Are you spending quality time with your family? Make a resolution to enjoy life a little more this year. Smell the flowers. Savor the flavor of your food. Hug your kids one extra time every day. Don’t stress on the resolutions. If you’re happy, life is good and you don’t need them anyway.

So those are my sage words of advice for this month. Now tell me, do you, or do you not make resolutions? Are they attainable? Do you feel good or bad if you do or do not attain them?

Word of the day:  Coarctate

Fun fact about me:   I am allergic to salmon.

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