New Year's Resolutions

Growing up as a young girl I remember my mother each and every year making a promise to herself that she would lose weight and get in better shape by walking. I would follow in her footsteps making New Year's resolutions too (usually involving lying). By the time I was ten I was so jaded about making New Year's resolutions that I decided after a few more years of trying hard to stick to it that I was never going to make a New Year's resolution again. I never have made a New Year's resolution again from that time to this... at least not officially. Still it is rather humorous to listen to people planning things for the next year.... really, what they are planning are sort of resolutions. This year I intend to do this.... or that... I hear people say, and while it is not really a resolution, it is in a way since they are promising themselves something that will change this year.  So it has dawned on me that I am not really any different than anyone else when it comes to these promises to ourselves. Really I have made promises to myself each and every year just refusing to CALL them resolutions. Here are some of the resolutions I have caught myself out in this year.

1. I will lose 20 lbs

2. I will ride my new exercise bike every day for at least twenty minutes.

3. I will finish two questions a day in my homework.

4. I will knit a pair of socks each month (this one is carried over from last year).

5. I will try not to piss away too much time on stupid games on Facebook or the cell phone thereby ruining my resolutions in #2, 3, and 4.

6. I will have a better attitude toward Christmas. (I don't have to worry about that one till about September..... 'cause I rarely think about it till then anyway).

7. I will not make any impossible promises to myself.

Hmmm... well that last one blows this whole post out of the water... now doesn't it!

Unbidden, and more importantly, impossible promises to ourselves are just setting ourselves up for  failure.... Instead I should be saying I am going to try to lose 20 pounds. But then if I'm really honest with myself just "trying" means that I can now go and eat for breakfast that bag of cheesies that are in my kitchen pantry screaming out my name. No I have decided that maybe resolutions are not so bad after all... maybe just saying that you ARE going to do this or that means that you are figuratively sticking a steal rod in our back and forcing ourselves to follow through on those promises/resolutions.

So here goes...

1. I will lose 20 lbs this year (and keep them off).

2 I will ride my new exercise bike twenty minutes a day.

3. I will finish two questions a day in my homework.

4. I will order silk hankies today and start knitting socks after level 5 and 3 are finished.

5. I will only play video games for ten minutes each night before I go to sleep.

6. I will not have a temper tantrum every time the cats do something stupid like puking in Teapot's new slippers. (Midnite accomplished that feat of stupidity yesterday morning after gulping his breakfast down so fast that it wasn't even chewed properly, raising my blood pressure to new heights).

7. I will make impossible promises to my self and I will TRY to keep them!

Amen to that.