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.

Same Old, Same Old?

When my sister told my mother we'd gone parasailing, Mom said, "You're kidding? Your sister, too?" At which point Sis informed Mom she was on the speaker phone.

When I told Head Trip I went parasailing, she said, "Really? But ... Really?" I had to tell her I had pictures to prove it before she stopped tripping over her own tongue.

When I told LF Trip I went parasailing, he paused before he said, "Good for you!" in that hearty way someone who can't wrap his head around a concept says anything. And then he followed up later by laughing over a comment I made about cleaning the house, adding, "You? Mom you never really cleaned anything in your life." (Yes, I could hear the italics.)

Predictable, funny, do-anything-for-me Mom. Queen of the Unfinished projects wife. Low key, play-it-safe gal.

I'm pretty damned tired of everyone thinking they know me. I really need to do something about that. And do a lot of it.

Wipe Out

Tired. Got up at 3 am because I was so paranoid about my early flight. Well, that and I forgot to grade two essays I swore I'd grade. Haven't called everyone about upcoming weeks' schedules as I said I would, so I have massive amounts of tutorial students to call today.

I'm beat. I had fun. I'm back in the real world. Some of it sucks, but I am so happy to be in the Big Lug's arms again I don't care about the rest of it.

Late For The Blogging

I can't believe it's Tuesday - I haven't missed (many of) my deadline since I set one! One day and ... however many minutes late, but I can't help it. Time is different here.

It's not as if I haven't followed a certain routine. I found a pretty pair of earrings at a Goodwill Boutique (they have boutiques down here for all the good stuff - with boutique prices) and a couple of fabulous Rogers 1847 plate serving pieces (not boutique, so cheap) plus an after-market marked (585) fake gold medallion that while not gold wasn't priced as gold and is therefore gorgeous and worthy of mounting.

Plus I hunted the Treasure Coast - found nothing, but had a great time at the McLarty Treasure Museum, and watched my sister get truly bitten by the treasure bug as she chased a piece of green glass (probably) wondering if it was one of the emeralds that was in the convoy from 1715 (hence the Treasure Coast) and determined to find out. She saw it, missed it in the tide, and scanned the shore for an hour but never found it again. She said she was not hoping for the 69-carat emerald some woman found years ago after a hurricane, but maybe one of 2-carat size, as some guy with a metal detector said a friend found, would be possible. She picked up every flat "rock" that might be a piece of eight, every coral accretion that might hold a reale (a small piece of gold), anything that looked possible. And because of that, if for no other reason, it was a great day.

Today I parasailed - just returned, actually. It was like flying but without the engine and boredom that a pilot's license would give me. I felt close to the angels today. A treasure of a different kind, for sure.

I go home Thursday. Florida doesn't have the advantage of the Pacific Ocean (I will always be a West Coast girl) but it's fascinating, diverse, fun, and definitely outside my usual box. I suspect I'll feel the reverberations of this trip for a very long time.

Nuts

My husband thinks I'm insane. I'm about to leave on a fabulous Florida vacation, and I'm focused not on the beaches and pools and hunting in foreign parts but on the long, loooonnnngggg list of things I need to do before I leave. Men are seriously not women.

I don't understand why he sees clutter if it's my stuff but not if it's his (dirt, he never sees, not really). I don't understand why he will fight like hell to hold onto a scrap of wood or length of cable but tosses his clothes on the floor in the path of feet, cats, and other damaging things. I don't understand how he calls it "his lawn" when he doesn't know weed from fescue. And I really don't understand how he can rail on my for not putting his tools back in exactly the right pile. Men are so odd.

Ah well. He doesn't get me, either, and (frankly) I'm kind of happy about that. I'm a mystery. That's a guy thing, too (God bless 'em), and I'm happy about that because to us they're not a bit mysterious - they're just irritating. It would truly stink if they realized the same about us.