53 or 12 or 3 New Year's Resolutions

I can't imagine a New Year's Day arriving without watching the Rose Bowl Parade while eating from-the-can cinnamon rolls, with a pot of coffee on the side, all the while wearing pjs for at least half the day. Then eating ham and scalloped potatoes, with a serving of black eyed peas for me, and some kind of pie. It just wouldn't feel like New Year's Day otherwise.

I also can't imagine not making resolutions. If it finally gets down to it, and the rest of the entire world gives them up, you'll still have my Mom and me making our lists, and it has to be done before January 1, so that we can get right to it!

The question is 'how many, how many?' I could make one for every year but 53 would be awfully hard to keep track of, let alone actually trying to implement that many changes, when it's hard to even get used to sleeping on my other side, or not always chewing on the right side, after the new crown is in place. I've found change doesn't come easy.

I could make 12, as I usually do, one for each month. That doesn't seem so insurmountable. The fact that I've never kept 12 tells me to reach a little lower, and maybe just skip that 10 lb. weight loss, get radical and say I look just fine the way I am, and move on. I don't remember a single funeral I've ever been to, where my first thought was, 'she never did lose that 10 lbs., my, oh my, what a wasted life!'...

I decided this year to just grab onto the very few things that were striking me, and do them with a vengeance. So here it is - my THREE resolutions for 2009.

#1 Read only fiction, for the entire year. Don't read a single 'how to' or 'what's wrong with me (or others)' or 'how to change the world around me in 30 days'. Just read good fiction and that in itself will shape me. I'm a non-fiction girl, so this is big for me. I'm already grieving over the biographies I'm going to have to wait a year for, and that'll make them all the more delicious when I get back to them.

#2 Be nicer to our dogs. Groom them more often. Walk them now and then. Play ball. They'd get by without most of it, most of the time, but I think being nicer to our animals might make me a nicer person to the world at large. Walking them now and then might whittle off a few lbs, for me and the boys, without having to follow some complicated diet plan. I've always loved the quote, "Lord, help me to be the person my dog thinks I am."

#3 Call my parents more often. I'm doing better at that, having resolved it last year, but there's always room for improvement.

Really, you can't call your Mom too often, now can you?

I bought a new copy of the One Year Bible, plan to play a bit more this year, possibly burn the paint brushes when I'm finished with this house, but those are just plans. I'm only resolving to three.

Here's to 2009 - Happy New Year Everyone! And Happy Birthday to my baby brother, Derrell - the New Year's Baby of 1958!