Resolutions

No. 1: Swear less. I learned to swear fluently early on in life and have done my best to develop it into an art form since then. I can curse in three languages (English, Spanish, and enough German to get into trouble) and can string together a nice long burst of profanity. I’m kind of okay with this. What I’m not okay with is that I curse when conditions don’t warrant it – there is no reason to sprinkle cuss words through a conversation and to punctuate my thoughts with the f-bomb. So I’m going to try to limit my swearing to times when it is warranted (accidently stapling my finger, dropping a knitting needle on the train, anything involving home improvement projects).

No. 2: Be more tidy. My desk at work is actually in pretty good shape and usually is, primarily because during bouts of boredom and slow work periods (see also: the past 18 months) I clean. But at home…wow. Part of it is that neither the mister nor I are particularly neat people. If given the option of putting something away or just putting it down, we pick the latter every time. As a result, our house, well, it looks like a pack (herd?) of rabid monkeys has taken up residence. I cannot do anything to change his habits, but I can work on my own. So my resolution is to spend 15 minutes every day picking up/putting away my stuff. If I can at least remove my junk from the mix, the house will be a little bit tidier. If there’s nothing of mine to pick up or put away (haha), I will spend those 15 minutes doing dishes or cleaning out the fridge or vacuuming up the drifts of dog hair in my living room.

No. 3: Be happier. I have been such a downer lately. Most of my unhappiness stems from one thing in particular, so my biggest goal in this area is to FIX THAT ONE DAMNED PROBLEM. But because this is proving to be difficult, I’m making a smaller goal: to make a conscious decision every day to be happy; to count my blessings; to enjoy myself. Tied into this one: stop being such a wretched bitch and taking out my foul mood on innocent bystanders.

No. 4: Do laundry once a week. I have enough underwear to go for nearly a month (though the last few days are spent yanking wedgie-inducing undies out of my butt) and enough professional-esque clothing to go nearly that long, as long as I remember to swing by the dry cleaners once or twice, and as a result, dirty clothes pile up. The pile gets so big I just sort of ignore it, pulling out a few items here and there and tossing them in the wash, but never making much of a dent. If I do laundry once a week, it won’t get so out of hand.

No. 5: Attend a group fitness class once a week at the gym. Kickboxing, yoga, spin, strength training, whatever. Just go. No, seriously, stop thinking about it and making up excuses, get off your ass and go. Now. Other health-kick type goals: keep working out, stop eating cookies for breakfast, and be able to retire fat-pants permanently by swimsuit season.