Okay, Christmas is great. My birthday? Totally fun. Mother’s day? Now you’re talking! But as for me, my absolutely favorite holiday is New Year’s, hands down. Not the staying up, or the parties…we hardly ever do that, anyway. In fact, while I was growing up our entire celebration consisted of falling asleep on the living room floor watching Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve and having my Dad shake us awake at midnight so we could open the front door, say “Oooooo, there goes baby New Year!” and eat a piece of pickled herring for good luck. (I don’t know why. We were an odd little family.)
Nope. I love New Year’s because it contains my most favorite moment of the entire year. That moment when I wake up, walk to the window and look out at the world and the 365 unblemished days ahead and I HAVEN’T SCREWED ANYTHING UP, YET.
Heavenly.
Clearly, I’m the type that loves resolutions. I love that uber-organized, super-fit, ever-loving mother with zen-like calm and the impeccable spending habits that exists oh, so briefly in those first seconds of each year between the time the resolutions are made and, oh, I’m going to say, 9:05 AM January 1st, by which time the kids have started a fight, I’ve waded into the fray (probably grabbing a danish on the way in) and realized, nope. Just me. Frazzled, disorganized, sugar and caffeine-addicted me.
That never stops me, though. So, without further ado, my resolutions for 2011:
- I’m going to stop feeling bad about stuff I do not know. Stuff I do not care to know. Stuff I have no interest in knowing. Example; recently I purchased a new video camera. I had several criteria which I shared with the salesperson involving the zoom, battery life and most importantly, that the dang thing be MAC COMPATIBLE. So I follow this salesperson’s advice, purchase the camera–which is not cheap–and go home. Several weeks later, my son attempts to download his latest bit of zombie cinema magic and, of course, the camera doesn’t recognize our computer and vice versa. The software will not download. So clearly, not compatible. I take it back. And the new salesperson, looks very confused, disappears for a long time and comes back and proceeds to argue with me that it IS compatible…I just need to go to some secret website, download a new driver, “tweak” the preferences in imovie, idvd and
my OS, etc. And as he is speaking to me as if I am a chimp in a zoo and he’s attempting to teach me sign language I have the mental flash that sets me free: I realize that I am 20 years older than this knucklehead. I have five kids and my own business. I know LOTS of stuff that don’t happen to be computer related. I don’t want to “tweak” anything, nor should I have to. I pay extra for my iMacs so everything just works when I plug it in and stops working when it’s time to buy a new one. I am unapologetically ignorant so just get me a new camera already! I’m telling you people, it was as if the heavens opened up and angels sang. No more shall I fret about the fact that I cannot list the US presidents or that I don’t know the current Prime Minister?? President??? Czar??? of Canada. If I can google it, I don’t need to know it. - I’m going to pay attention to what is happening NOW. I believe Oprah would call that “being present in the moment.” Not that my moment to moment is so awesome, it’s more that I am embarrassed by how often people ask me what I did yesterday and I got nothin’. Just a blank stare and a gaping hole in my short term memory. I choose to believe it’s because I’m thinking of a thousand things at once and NOT that I’m becoming senile. So I’m going to pay attention to my life more and stop making constant mental lists if only so that when people ask me what I had for lunch I have an answer.
- Eat a piece of fruit, already.
- And drink some milk, while you’re at it.
- Be frugal. Like, crazy frugal. Recycle your vacuum cleaner bags, use the dirty dishwater to water the houseplants frugal. You see, we’ve already told the girls that we are NOT paying for their weddings. Sorry, princesses. Neither will we be selling our home to pay for college. We have small education IRAs for all you kids, but if I were you, I’d start studying for the SATs now. The one thing we are willing to mortgage ourselves to the teeth for is our family trip to Ethiopia, birthplace of our three youngest children. Hubby has decided that will happen NEXT summer, 2012, and NOT in 2014, which we originally thought. (remember his “the world is running out of oil” paranoia. Apparently if we don’t go now the planes will stop flying and we never will get back.) I need to save up for seven plane tickets to Addis Ababa…so we need to save…let’s see…carry the two…add the five…. Seventeen thousand qwazilllion dollars.
There’s more, I’m sure. Resolutions involving writing and fitness and the like. It takes many resolutions to really flesh out that impeccable person I dream of being. But for now, I only have fourteen hours to really cram in all my slovenly, self-indulgent, selfish, irresponsible tendencies. ‘Cause tomorrow is a New Year and then, WATCH OUT world! Prepare to be dazzled by my perfection….at least until lunchtime. Perfection is hard, y’all.
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