Thinking about New Year's Resolutions

I’d been planning to write a little something about my own New Year’s resolutions when I came across a piece in this past Sunday’s New York Times Sunday Review section. John Tierney, the author of the article, “Be It Resolved”, wrote: “… you’re much more likely to make improvements than someone who hasn’t made a formal resolution.” I guess that means making an actual written list of the resolutions, not just thinking about it when I wake up in the middle of the night.

 The article starts out with people’s most common resolutions: to lose weight, to exercise more, to spend less money.

So far I had not made a list of my own 2012 resolutions, so I’ll do that here:

1)      Take off the 5 pounds I recently put on, after losing 12 last year. How did that happen?
2)      Work on Rosetta Stone Spanish at least an hour a day.
3)      Spend at least an hour a day playing the piano.
4)      Spend less time on Facebook so I’ll have more time for #3 and #4.
5)      Call, not just email, my grown-up children more often. They live all over the place.
6)      Get back to pursuing some genealogy.
7)      Scan slides of family activities. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of them.
8)      Blog more often. It gets me writing, which I need to do.

Weight: Those pounds snuck up on me. I don’t think they have anything to do with holiday celebrations. I think I’m just back into my old eating habits. I exercise as much as I ever did, so I don’t think that’s a factor. I just need to be more careful about what I put in my mouth, both liquid and solid. Wish I didn’t like Scotch and brandy so much.

Spanish: I’ve recently taken classes in conversational Spanish. They  got me basically nowhere. I’ve stuck little labels all over the house: “el horno” on the oven, “la ventana” on a window. A little of it stays with me, but I still go into a “deer in the headlights” mode when I have to come up with a word or phrase. So I need to practice more if I ever expect to hold a conversation. I’m hoping that a greater commitment to Rosetta Stone will help.

Piano: We got a nice little spinet from our friend Lynn who had no further use for it. We’ve had it tuned several times to get it up to pitch. It sounds pretty good. Bob plays it off and on, and I do too, except that, for me, it’s mostly “off.”

Facebook: No explanation needed.

Phone contact: I really don’t like to use the phone. I can’t understand why I think I need an iPhone; I don’t think I’ll ever turn it on, but we’ll see. But I do like talking with my sons and daughters, grandkids, and sons and daughters-in-law. So I plan to get around the time zones and do more of that.

Genealogy: My daughters are asking questions about who came from where. That should motivate me. I have to get back to a somehow removed cousin to find out more about my father’s family. Mother’s data is much more difficult to access. I think I might have to travel to Prague, or at least the courthouse in Cleveland  to find out more.

Scanning slides: I just have to resolve to do it. A couple of years ago I scanned all the black and white photos (hundreds of them), copied them to my external hard drive, and sent CDs to all the kids. So now I have to attack the slides. I need to find out about slide scanners and buy a decent one.

So maybe I’ve bitten off more than I can chew (no reference to food). I’ll just have to see how it goes.