Tag Archives: New Year’s resolution

Rachael’s Resolutions

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay.

In 2012, I revolutionized the practice of making New Year’s Resolutions. Instead of lying through my teeth about diets, exercise and tiresome niceness, I included only promises I could keep.

Still, I didn’t accomplish all my goals. I kept a pair of gloves intact, forgetting to lose one of every pair. I remembered to charge my phone before it quit four times that year. Despite my efforts to destroy the previous Christmas’s poinsettias, one still lives. I didn’t kill it completely, though judging from its appearance, it probably wishes I had.

Given these failures, an attack of perfectionism prevented me from attempting resolutions again.

But I’ve recovered. Noble aspirations for 2024 are listed below:

I promise to harmonize with background music in stores. Singing is gluten-free, contains zero calories and harbors no toxic substances (if on key).

While I may not be the best snow shoveler, I find ways to have fun.

Shoveling snow, I’ll throw half our driveway’s gravel into the yard. Come spring, I’ll pick up 15 percent and let Hubby’s lawnmower retrieve the rest.

I’ll wear only mom jeans, sparing myself and the rest of the world any attempts at wearing skinnies. Instead, I’ll move up a pants size. Moving up is a promotion, right?

I will not label freezer items. Plus, if I’m careful to maintain its chaos, a ten-pound unknown will tumble out every time I open it.

Image by Maayan2007 from Pixabay.

I’ll continue to laugh too loud at our pastor’s jokes on Sunday morning. Sorry, fellow church members, but my laughter comes in one-size-fits-all.

I will growl at the gas gods, whether they zap my pocketbook or lower prices and mess with the world economy.

I’ll never open the front window at drive-throughs without opening a back one first.

I will introduce my grandchildren to a new form of sugar their folks have banned.

I’ll bore my grandkids with “when I was a girl” stories. (The last time I did this, one grandson asked if I knew Betsy Ross.)

I will hand out free smiles, no limits, and no coupon needed.

I won’t change a single light bulb, even if we’re cast into outer darkness. Hubby needs to feel needed.

Finally, I will leave at least one cell phone unmuted, one car horn braying for no reason, and one zipper unzipped at the worst possible moments of 2024.

Too lofty a list?

Sigh. Perfectionism strikes again. …

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What doable resolutions will you make for 2024?

New Year’s Resolutions? Already?

Image by Sam from Pixabay.

What do you mean, it’s 2023? Didn’t we just change millennia?

But if we’re going to be delusional, let’s take it all the way: Didn’t The Beatles just arrive from Britain?

Unfortunately, reality refuses to go away. I should believe the mirror and get down to the important — and now, bearable — business of making New Year’s resolutions.

Image by Willfried Wende from Pixabay.

Years ago, I revolutionized this prickly process by making only resolutions I could keep. A 100-percent success rate has confirmed my process’s validity. So, with confidence — and not a little smugness — I present:

Rachael’s Resolutions for 2023

First, I resolve not to embrace the Liver Diet.

I will add another size to my black pants collection. Probably not a smaller size.

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay.

Continuing the clothing theme: I will leave ink pens only in wash loads that include my husband’s best shirts.

I will lose 23 of my husband’s left socks. And zero of mine.

In 2023, I promise not to buy a Tibetan mastiff puppy for 1.9 million dollars, as one dog lover did. Hubby, not a canine devotee even when it’s free, breathes easier.

His mood improves further when I resolve to root against the New England Patriots, LA Lakers, Kentucky Wildcats, and St. Louis Cardinals during 2023. Forever and ever.

Image by Jason Pinaster from Pixabay.

I will not attend Punxsutawney Phil’s arrival in full ball dress — even if he and his groundhog buddies are wearing tails.

Next summer, I promise to eat three cherry Popsicles® with real sugar.

I will clear the dining room table in 2023. When in-laws visit.

However, I refuse to disturb dust in my living room. Why disrupt an archaeological wonder in the making?

Ditto for four nonfunctional boom boxes and the garage bulging with 1980s computer equipment.

Image by Azmi Talib from Pixabay.

I resolve to pray for drivers who cut me off: “God, please bless my interstate enemy — and protect everyone in his path. By the way, could You also dismantle his transmission?”

I resolve to yell at my computer more than I yell at people.

That smile crinkles will outnumber frown wrinkles.

Whew. That last goal appears impossible.

Unless I also resolve to ruin someone’s bad day with kindness. Every. Chance. I. Get.

Image by James Chan from Pixabay.

Together, those final two resolutions may blow my 100 percent success record. But don’t you think it’s worth it?

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What resolutions will you make for 2023?

Looking Back on Resolutions 2021

Image by USA-Reiseblogger from Pixabay.

Are you one of those scary people who keep New Year’s resolutions?

Then skip this and return to Planet Jenny Craig, from whence you came.

If, however, you’ve given up all hope of achieving such goals, let me be the first to encourage you. A decade ago, I discovered a unique approach that revolutionized New Year’s Day.

I learned to make only resolutions I will keep.

Please note the effortless beauty of the following examples:

  • I promise I will not mow our lawn in January.
  • I will give up earmuffs for the Fourth of July.

Check out my actual 2021 resolutions, whose success rates left those of Jenny Craig aliens panting in interplanetary dust, including:

Image by congerdesign from Pixabay.
  • I will refrain from topping my waffles with pickles.
  • I will, however, break world s’more records, as our children gave us a patio firepit for Christmas. This mother wants to make her children happy, so no sacrifice is too great.
  • My next resolution should prove doable for 95 percent of the world’s population: I will blame COVID-19 for everything. Conventional therapy points fingers at spouses, parents, kids and in-laws. Instead, blame COVID. This is cheaper and less complicated, as no virus yet has been named in a lawsuit or divorce.
  • Speaking of COVID, I also resolve to wear a mask in public. Even if most are designed to fit your average antelope.
  • I’ll still greet all checkout personnel and other shoppers with a smile.
  • If the pandemic endures, I’ll continue my role of Invisible Pickup Customer. Despite reservations, confirming emails, receipts, pickup signs and angels blowing trumpets where I park, I will continue to elude pickup personnel at each and every store.
  • Out of deep concern for the local economy, I will order takeout. Three times a day.
  • In 2021, I will talk to my microwave more than to humans. Which probably is good, because mostly I yell at it to shut up.
  • I resolve not to camp in Dead Women Crossing, Oklahoma.
  • I will continue to brighten the days of IT personnel and car mechanics with the astute diagnostic phrase, “It doesn’t work.”
  • I will regard all device updates as tools of the devil and Russia.
  • I will not lift my car to clean its underside.
  • I resolve to write in cursive, though my grandchildren believe I am using hieroglyphics. Not surprising, as I helped build the pyramids.
Image by TheDigitalArtist from Pixabay.
  • Finally, I will stumble through playing and singing one praise song daily, thankful that my childhood dog — who howled epithets when I sang — no longer critiques me. Fortunately, Jesus and Hubby like it.

See? A simple, innovative approach. Profound. And free. (You only pay for shipping.)

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Are you ready to take the resolution leap in 2022?

What Happened to Two Decades?

Has it really been 20 years since Y2K? Hoarding batteries, bottled water and turkey jerky, we feared computers would crash worldwide, technological brains scrambled until capable only of playing nonstop games.  

That didn’t happen, enabling millions of relieved humans to continue that role.

Others choose self-improvement, including making New Year’s resolutions.

Opponents argue that such resolutions last as long as a snowflake chomped by a kindergartner. Do resolutions accomplish even less than computer games?

Several years ago, I formulated a brilliant solution; I make only resolutions I can keep. Below, I’ve listed My Astute Pledges for 2020:

  • I vow to put away my Christmas decorations before Easter.
  • Obeying my mother’s long-ago admonitions, I promise to wear my boots outside … when there’s no snow to ruin them.
  • I will make at least one snow angel this winter. But not before Hubby rents a hydraulic lift to hoist me back on my feet.
  • I vow to amaze my neighborhood with spectacular spins and leaps on my icy way to the mailbox. Also, as I back our car out of the driveway. (I expect all 10s, folks.)
  • I resolve to wear lots of fuzzy, checkered socks. January needs all the excitement it can get.
  • I promise to go camping with my husband. I will, however, ignore all conversations that begin with, “I’ll bet Iceland is beautiful in January.”
  • I will continue to let my kitchen range outwit me. Weeks after the time change, it finally allowed me to change the hour on its digital clock. However, it adjusts the minutes to please itself, just to show who’s boss.
  • I promise to wow servers at our favorite Mexican restaurants with my Spanish. Never mind that I’ve ordered enchiladas with pineapple-lizard salsa and included a short treatise on jaywalking laws. I know they appreciate hearing their native language.
  • I pledge never to need a box for uneaten pizza.
  • Regarding chocolate: I will double my intake this year. Are you aware that, averaging nine pounds per year, Americans are 20th in world consumption? Unthinkable that the Swiss, Austrians and 17 other countries should out-chocolate us. So, I’ll do my patriotic duty.
  • When we play board games with grandchildren, I aspire to always come in last. (Unfortunately, older grandkids now refuse to be my partner.)
  • I promise to deny my adolescent grandchildren will ever, ever drive.
  • Finally, I resolve to LOL and hahaha more in person this year than on Facebook.

You, too? Then regardless of scrambled brains, computer or human, turkey jerky or patriotic chocolate, 2020 is well on its way to being a Happy New Year. Let’s go for it!

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What weird resolution will you make this year?

Dieting Days

My New Year’s resolution diet isn’t going well. Yours?

No wonder. According to weight loss gurus, we should never diet when under stress. We should have postponed until a kind genie shoveled our driveways, thawed frozen pipes and freed us from snow days with kids who act like us.

But no-o-o-o, we announced to spouses, relatives, Facebook friends and Australian Twitter pals that we intended to lose X number of pounds.

Hollywood celebrities often tout advanced diet alternatives. Critics point out these people, habitually in rehab and/or kidnapped by aliens, might not prove health experts. But they are thin. Therefore, we must take their advice and adopt the following:

  • Grapefruit Oil Diet. Instead of eating grapefruit, a dieter sniffs a vial of grapefruit oil before meals. The aroma fires up her liver, burning away every trace of the three Moose Tracks Sundaes she ate. Some report even better results from smelling skunk oil, but I’m not that desperate … yet.
  • Salmon Diet. Eating salmon three times a day combats inflammation, the alleged source of all health problems. It also exchanges the eater’s decrepit body for a young one, including a flashy facelift. Love the idea. But does it sound a little fishy?
  • Baby Food Diet. Mmm, strained turkey and beet dinners. An extra 200 calories are burned per meal if the dieter makes airplane sounds.
  • Lemonade Diet. Participants drink a mixture of lemon juice, cayenne pepper and maple syrup exclusively for 10 days. This liquid diet completely cleanses a body of toxins.*

*The toxins run away screaming. This diet was carried out on a closed course by a professional. Do not attempt at home.

  • Most dieters, without messy surgeries or loss of vital organs, practice some form of the Amputation Diet before weigh-ins. We clip nails, get haircuts, and remove clothing, jewelry, contact lenses/glasses and birthmarks before stepping on scales. In addition, Amputation Diet enthusiasts claim a loss of 10-25 pounds in one day if you don’t mind losing a limb.

Fortunately, we can retain our arms, yet remain on diets, if we plan carefully. Try a different diet every day of the month. How can this help? Most diets include a “splurge day.” Schedule 30 splurge days of 30 different diets, and you will never feel deprived.

Exercise is given far too much emphasis. Watching other people exercise, on the other hand, prevents injuries.

Every dieter should collect helpful books, including Virtual Calories and Meditate Away Your Fat Cells.

The websites were right. Since adopting this new approach, I find dieting a “fun, wonderful, educational journey.” One problem: I couldn’t zip my jeans this morning.

Where’s that diet genie when I need him?

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What diet tip can you share?

Keepable Resolutions 2019

Ah, resolutions. As in shaping up. Getting a grip.

You gotta love ’em.

No, you don’t. I don’t, either.

I used to procrastinate, thinking long and deep about resolutions, researching, editing, and reediting. My well-honed list didn’t emerge until February. I ate junk food, remained a couch potato, and avoided being nice a whole extra month.

Recently, though, I discovered a new, improved resolution-making method that reduces procrastination, yet prevents the root-canal effect of good behavior. My secret? I make only resolutions I can keep.

Simple. Profound. Why didn’t Einstein or some other genius with funny hair discover this?

I’m already hard at work, keeping my 2019 list.

In household matters:

  • I resolve not to embrace the latest décor: skinny sofas with all the cushy comfort of park benches and chairs designed by those who hate vertebrates. My outdated sofa will continue to encourage naps instead of body casts.
  • I also resolve not to rearrange my current furniture. My heart couldn’t take moving it. Or, seeing what’s under it.
  • I will resist the temptation to make our bread from scratch. Admittedly, I used to do this. But we must shed past follies, right?

In transportation matters:

  • No white car of mine shall remain white.
  • I will never take a flight to see my dad in Louisiana that doesn’t include a stop in Fargo, North Dakota.

In sports matters:

  • I promise to cheer against the New England Patriots forever, even if they move to the Midwest.
  • I promise to cheer the Kentucky Wildcats only if they move away from the Midwest.

In marriage and family matters:

  • Even in January, I will crack my bedroom window for fresh air. An added plus: I like sleeping with a giant burrito.
  • I resolve to freak out as my only granddaughter blossoms. Two freaked-out parents aren’t enough to supply the embarrassment levels every teen needs.

In miscellaneous matters:

  • I promise not to pay perfectly good money to die on Six Flags Great Adventure’s Kingda Ka, the tallest roller coaster in the world.
  • I will waste time viewing sunrises and sunsets.
  • I promise to sing along with raindrop music, and
  • I will click the TV remote when Victoria’s Secret ads appear.

Finally, in post-holiday matters:

I won’t take down my Christmas tree until I’m good and ready. Between Advent celebrations and a January 1 book deadline, I’ve taken little time to enjoy it. Besides, snow deserted Indiana this year. True Christmas tree appreciation requires snowflakes dancing outside my window. So, I’ll cradle my steaming holly mug, with carols playing and tree glowing, until my snow-goal is met.

Not that I’m procrastinating, or anything.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What keepable New Year’s resolutions will you make for 2019?