How’s that New Year’s resolution coming along?
As Q1 2009 comes to a close this week, are you 25 percent of the way toward meeting the goal you set for 2009?
Me neither.
During that quiet, peaceful time right after Christmas when everything seems possible and a new year dawns with celebration and potential, I resolved to organize my house. Photos, closets, toys, you name it ó basement to the attic.
Considering that my 5-year-old still doesn’t have a baby book but just a huge manila envelope in her closet stuffed with newspaper clippings, height and weight percentiles and her umbilical cord, I chose no small task.
I’ve done little to achieve my goal. But I just realized that I’ve accomplished many other things already this year.
Silly me. I should have resolved to:
nEmbarrass my children. Check. Apparently, I laugh too loudly at movies, ask their friends too many questions and am, in general, tragically unhip. (In my defense, I do not wear mom jeans or have an AOL account. Anymore.)
Nellie has asked me to puh-lease not show up at Koontz Elementary in workout clothes. Ever again.
I am so good at embarrassing my older kids that they’ve instituted a moratorium on kissing or hugging within 200 yards of any school, ballfield or restaurant. In fact, it’s best if I just pretend I don’t know them.What kids?
nSpend 59 hours a week on Facebook. Done. I have no problem staying up until 1 a.m. on Crackbook, browsing the pages of old friends, trying to come up with clever status updates and taking quizzes that reveal my “power animal” is a horse (which I am afraid of), that I should live in New York City (where I’ve never been) and that my accent is “northern” (just like all my southern friends). Infallible.
nGain 10 pounds. Easy. While most people resolved to lose weight, I should have bucked the trend and pledged to pack it on.
This was a piece of cake óchocolate, please ó after cracking a rib the day before Thanksgiving and turning into a couch potato for about nine weeks.
Six of those weeks were doctor’s orders. The additional three were just to insure double-digit weight gain.
nFear for the future of my profession. Mission accomplished. Every day seems to bring news of more layoffs and furloughs for the Fourth Estate.
The N.C. Research Campus press corps took a hit recently when one of my competitors lost his full-time position at a nearby paper, cutting our ranks by one-third.
With more newspapers shutting the doors or shutting down the press to publish online with a skeleton staff, it’s a cinch to wake up wondering if journalists will have jobs by the end of the year.
Obviously, I’ve achieved much in the first quarter of 2009. But I have yet to get organized.
My husband and I did spend one day cleaning out the basement together, an effort which resulted in neither divorce nor argument.
Quite an accomplishment. But I think I will tackle the attic by myself.
Emily Ford covers the N.C. Research Campus.