2012 – Bring It!

Happy New Year Y’all!

Hope everyone was able to celebrate it in a fun and safe way. Some people may think it’s dumb to celebrate a kind of trivial holiday like New Year’s but I kind of like it. Aside from it giving us a chance to get together with people we love and enjoy, it’s kind of nice to to feel like there’s a fresh start to things. Plus, I really do love the well wishes and hugs and kisses at midnight!

We haven’t done much this weekend – enjoying the last three day weekend for awhile. I was up until about 4am on Friday night drinking wine and playing Call of Duty online. Just one more match! Then Saturday, I slept in while Steve played Skyrim. We went to a party at my mom’s with some of my favorite family friends. And yesterday we slept in and then basically traded off on the XBox. Steve played Skyrim in the morning while I went through all the pictures from the party and did some first of the month computer cleanup and watched the laundry. Then I played while he watched and made homemade cookies and cream ice cream with the machine he got me for Christmas. Then he decided he wanted to kill a dragon so I gave him the controller back and wrote this blog entry.

This game is going to be a serious addiction, if it isn’t already.

The party was wonderful though and a lot of fun. It was my family and quite a few family friends that I’ve known since their grown adult (and newly engaged – SQUEE!) children were babies. And a couple of mine and Steve’s friends and some random tag a longs and neighbors who stopped by. I love these people y’all! Like we show up early because we have to open a few leftover presents from my parents (sewing machine for me! YAY!) and help set up. Everyone starts arriving – there’s so much food and drinks and it’s loud and noisy and boisterous. People are playing Dance Central 2 in the living room (mostly the grown adult women!, including my mother, who probably did it the most). I made a concerted effort to take a bunch of pictures last night since I always get so involved in partying that I miss everything. So not only did I get some great candids but everyone was so game to pose and ham it up for the camera that there are some awesome shots of everyone being happy and just having a good time. And at midnight, we watched the ball drop and there was just an explosion of love and laughter and joy in the living room. I’m taking pictures and smiling and I look over at Steve and look up for a kiss and he says, “Well if you’d put the camera down,” and gives me a big kiss and a hug and I’m still walking around taking pictures and hugging these people I’ve known all my life and it was just such a wonderful night. So happy I got to ring in the New Year that way!

And the kicker – this was the first New Year’s I was stone cold sober and I still got pulled over … for going TOO SLOW! The cop busted a U-turn in the middle of the road and follow me for a good few miles before he turned his lights on. And I was confused because I knew there was nothing I was doing wrong. But he said I was doing 40 in a 55 and figures that since it was New Years and drunk drivers tend to try to be overly conscious and drive slower that he’d check me out. I just found it hysterical that I was actually doing everything right and still had to the panic induced stomach flip flops that come from being pulled over like that!

The plan for today is to either take down all of the Christmas decorations and get back to the normal to-do of life … or play more Skyrim! That has yet to be decided. But the one thing I did want to do is to go ahead and put my resolutions out there in the ether so that I have something to look back on next year when I only finish half of them!

I reviewed last year’s here and this year, I figured I’d stick with the same kind of format – a list of things to Accomplish, or finite goals, and a list of Resolutions, which are more like ideals that I want to incorporate into my life.

Here goes nothing!

Things to Accomplish in 2012

• Buy ATV’s – this is our new hobby we’ve decided we want to pick up.
• Get a new entertainment center – so that the thing we spend the most time with (our TV area) is better organized and much less of an eyesore.
• Lose 20 pounds – I have to do it eventually & it’s always easier to start small.
• No cigarettes for six months – this is the minimum but will ultimately aim for longer.
• Read 50 books
• Implement better nightly personal care routine for at least 30 days
• Paint the master bedroom – it doesn’t even have to be fully decorated, I just need to get it painted.
• Attend 4 painting classes
• Order new glasses and contacts.
• Pay off two credit cards
• Girls weekend/sleepover
• Quit drinking soda
• Sew something – even if it’s just a bag or hemming curtains. Gotta start somewhere.
• Make homemade pizza dough – I bought that bread machine so I could do exactly this.
• Install screen door on front of house
• Weekend getaway with Steve
• Buy extra hard drive and backup all of my photos there to keep at work as an extra layer of protection
• Take a photo of the same location once a month for the whole year.

2012 Resolutions

• Stop trying to apply logic where it doesn’t exist – this particularly applies to work.
• Say yes if there’s not a good reason to say no – mostly with regards to our social life.
• Remember, remember – some will stay in your heart but not in your life and that is ok. The only people who matter are the ones who act like you matter to them.
• Keep calm and carry on.
• Always wear mascara and a little bit of brown eyeliner.
• Find one type of exercise that I enjoy.
• Make better food decisions and broaden my palate.
• Really love the people I’m with. Where you invest your love, you invest your life!

So there they are! I like making them because I’m a list person and I like the fact that in the past few years, I’ve made them more finite and concrete – this, I think, makes them easier to accomplish.

Any particular goals you’d like to set in motion for the year? We should start a support group – the “Let’s Keep Our New Year’s Resolutions!” group.

Here’s wishing you a happy and prosperous New Year! I have a great feeling about 2012 and I hope it extends to all of you!

Psst – Wanna see the whole set of New Year’s Eve pictures that show random people you don’t know having a lot of fun!? Click here – you know you want to!