Friday, January 16, 2009

Resolutions.

by Teresa

Hello, readers:
Kelly and I had busy holidays and some vacation days thrown in there so the posts have been a little sparse lately!
But, I’ve been meaning to write a bit about my New Year’s Resolutions. 
So here’s a quick look, for those of you who may be interested:

Sure, I want to do all the usual, like eat healthy foods and get more exercise.  But there are a couple things I’m hoping to accomplish that are a little less typical, I think.

I’d like to be more “green” in the New Year.  I’m keeping up with my reusable bag habit.  I’ve decided I need more grocery store bags because often, the ones I have get filled, and I end up taking home some plastic bags, too.  I’ve also changed my grocery shopping routine a bit, so that after all the food is put away, I don’t consider the task “finished” until I fold up the bags and put them back in my car.  Otherwise, I’m likely to end up zipping to the store on the way home from work, and not realizing until I get there, that I don’t have the reusable bags with me.

I am hoping to get my all of my photos into actual photo albums.  This will never happen.  I’m setting myself up to fail here, because like many parents, I take hundreds of photos of my children.  They’re all organized and saved in the computer, of course.  It’s just actually getting them printed that’s my problem.  I know I won’t be able to catch up on all the photos that aren’t in albums yet.  But I hope to get some of them done.  And here’s my plan for moving forward: I hope to manage to print out at least the best dozen or so photos from each month, at the end of each month, and get those in an album.  So at least there will be something there to commemorate the big events.

Finally, and this may sound like a strange resolution for a journalist, but I’m going to try to communicate more!  Not on the job, where I do plenty of communicating, thank you very much.  I want to do more to stay in touch with the important people in my life.  To this end, I’ve done a couple of things.  I have finally learned how to text message!  I’m sure 20-somethings may be rolling their eyes as they read that, but until now, I just hadn’t done it.  At all.  Now I have a phone contract that includes texting, and I’ve found I actually enjoy using it for little things, like sending quick “Happy Birthday” messages to friends.  I’m quite certain I’ll never reach a point where I’m texting all day long like some people do, but it’s nice to have this option, now. 

I’ve also joined Facebook. This is something I have been resisting for quite some time now.  I finally decided to give in a few days ago.  (A couple of days after I joined, Slate published a great article on “reasons why people should join Facebook.“)  So far, I have about 25 “friends” and I’ve had some very happy experiences: “finding” people I used to know in college, learning new things about people I know. And I’ve had some experiences that are a bit mystifying, bordering on annoying: people I hardly know, and even some total strangers trying to “friend” me for reasons unfathomable.  But all in all, speaking here after just a few days with it, I think it’s going to be a worthwhile experience.

Finally, in the midst of all this computer and cell phone technology, I’ve vowed to hand-write at least one letter or note, per week, to someone I care about… and send it through the U.S. Mail.  I like this new goal the best of all my resolutions.  I bought some new, nice stationery, and I am really looking forward to quiet moments spent writing, each week, throughout the year.

By the way, this week on turnto10.com, we asked people how they’re doing on their resolutions.  More than 600 of you answered our survey, and here’s how the numbers ended up: 68% of you said you don’t make resolutions in the first place!  20% of you said you’ve stuck to them so far (good for you).  About 9% said you’ve broken your resolutions, but you’re not giving up, and will keep trying.  But 4% of you said you broke your resolutions, and that’s it, you’re giving up!

Only time will tell whether I’ll succeed with mine or not. 
If you’ve made resolutions, good luck with yours—and belatedly, Kelly and I wish you all a very Happy 2009.