Resolutions

The beginning of the school year always feels like New Year Day to me, much more so than the first of January. Let's face it, our lives have revolved around the fall-winter-spring-oh-yay/crap-it's-summer schedule more often than not our whole lives. Even without the teacher thing I have going, the student and parent part of it kept me busy for nearly 30 of my 50 years.

Sarah Ban Breathnach, in Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy, makes the argument that we shouldn't make our resolutions in January, when we're exhausted from the holidays, when the weather is bleak and depressing, and when (from my point of view) our financials are usually at their lowest ebb. No, the best time for new beginnings is the one consistent time of many of our new beginnings - the time of the year we got new clothes, new teachers, sometimes even new schools and new friends. Fall is technically a time when the Earth begins to wrap up. Why not start to rev up instead?

So, here's my list of resolutions. In the months to come I will ...

... follow through on at least five things I've been saying I will do for oh-so-long (write a story, fix and send out my resume more than once, start selling on eBay, get the other blog site up and running, decorate/redecorate rooms, etc.).

... be more decisive (no more waffling, hedging my bets, or deferring when I have an opinion) but less of a know-it-all (as if I'm one to give advice).

... take more pictures. And post them.

... participate more, in everything I can.

... have more adventures - real ones.

... learn something completely new, from the ground up.

... start something over, from scratch.

... give more encouragement than criticism, more hugs than food, and more support than expectations.

It's going to be an amazing year.