Like Geri, I was fully prepared to not have a New Year’s Resolution for 2010. Why set myself up for failure and despair? I’ve tried the dieting resolution often enough to know that I don’t do very well with that one. At least not after the 3rd week of January.
Last December, I hosted my annual Christmas Swap Party for a handful of friends. This is something I enjoy doing…except for the stress of cleaning the house. (My husband gave me the best present I could ask for by helping me greatly with this. But I digress…) It’s stressful because I once again focus on all the things I need to fix around the house. I imagine all my friends sitting there drinking wine, and taking in all the imperfections with judging eyes.
I love this time of year with all the decorations, the shopping, the Christmas cookies and the time spent with family and friends. When my children were little I remember settling in with our pillows and blankets on the couch, with a plate full of Christmas cookies and milk in preparation for a night filled with Christmas movies.
Many of the Christmas movies on TV air early in December, so we much preferred our VHS movies that we could watch closer to Christmas without commercials. We always started off with Home Alone and Home Alone 2–two of my son’s favorites.
I was all excited to tell you about a great thrift store find that I bought last week…a genuine Kate Spade purse! And I will, as soon as I can find the photo that I took of it to show you.
It’s Lost in Cyberspace! It’s somewhere on my computer, with a name of unrecognizable numbers, uploaded from my camera which always imports with a number instead of a name. So I can’t even do a search for “Kate” or “Spade.”
This frustrating lesson showed me the importance of organizing your computer files too. Once a month, we should spend 15 minutes deleting the unnecessary files and photos, reorganizing and moving, and decluttering.
I am doing my part for the environment by collecting the reusable grocery bags. I started with plain black ones, and have now expanded to colorful lime green and red ones. I always keep them handily in my car so I’m always ready for that last minute shopping trip. They’re great…when I remember to bring them into the store. I am always leaving them in the car! You know that V8 commercial, where they slap their forehead, and say “I could have had a V8!” That’s me with the bags, right after I enter the store.
Well today I remembered! Today I brought in all 10 of them, more than plenty for my quick purchase to ready myself for the upcoming Thanksgiving holidays. I was actually quite proud of myself for remembering.
Not long ago, I watched a sane, smart, normally rational person have a meltdown because their Blackberry wasn’t working. There was panic, angry words and deeds. Being cut off from emails, even for a day, seemed unfathomable to them. It wasn’t that they couldn’t get their email on their computer, they just couldn’t connect in the car, standing in the supermarket line, at their son’s baseball game…anywhere…maybe even some places that we don’t want to know.
That was one of those “ah-ha” moments for me, when I knew in my heart of hearts that that was wrong. I didn’t want to become so attached to a small rectangle of plastic that it could control my mood and my life, affecting the people around me.
