I Resolve, Among Other Things

I don’t wait for New Year’s to make resolutions. I make them all year long. Here’s a typical list:

This week I, Terry Shames, do firmly resolve to: clean up my desk, 

weed out 100 emails a day, reorganize my word files into reasonable folders, delete old files, lose two pounds by cutting out wine and sweets, work on my taxes, read two books, write a thousand words a day, work out every day, clean out my closet, write a couple of blog posts, clean out my freezer, clean out the garage, have a dinner party, take a load of stuff to the thrift store, reorganize the junk drawer, weed out a bunch of books I know I’ll never read, iron the clothes that have been sitting un-ironed for months, clean out the closet that never, ever gets opened, buy new shades for the room no one ever goes into, find a handyman to refit windows that won’t close and to replace the window pane that was broken last summer, make an appointment with a contractor to redo the second bathroom, make an appointment with the painter to tear out the piece of ceiling where the bathtub leaked into the kitchen and replace and paint it, write the 1-page bio I’ve been putting off, write an article for the Sisters in Crime newsletter, organize my photos that I’ve been meaning to organize since 2015, 

get out my knitting that I abandoned in 2012 and see if I can take up where I left off, make a date for lunch with someone I’ve been meaning to see, read at least 5 New Yorkers in the pile of 25 or so that are lying unread, find out why my dog Lucy has been licking her front paw, water the plants, take my stack of unframed art into the framer, buy my sister a birthday gift, order the spices I like from the spice shop, get somebody in to haul away a bunch of stuff from the basement, refresh my website, sew the three-inch seam on my husband’s shorts, get back to painting,  and……

So far, of that list from last week I’ve watered the plants, written the bio, and weeded out 100 emails. Oh, and I also changed two light bulbs. You may not think that’s much, but one has been out for two years, and the other one for five. Rather than change the light bulb in the spare bedroom, I dragged a lamp into the room. Oh, yeah, and after our visiting dog left, Lucy stopped licking her paw so I can call that an accomplishment, right? 

Some people might say those don’t count as resolutions, but why not? Why are they any less resolve-worthy than the lofty ones like losing weight or going to the gym or being nicer to everyone or promoting world peach? It’s all the stuff of life. Small wins that count in everyday life. Like when my husband was sick this week, and he was moping because we were out of his favorite peanut butter, so in rush hour traffic I drove to an odd little store several miles away that is the only one that carries his peanut butter. That’s a win. It should go in the “I resolve to do nice things” column.

You want lofty New Year’s Resolutions? Here you go:

This year I resolve to : Stay healthy,

 laugh a lot, 

work to overthrow the government, spend more time with friends, 

see the beauty around me, 

write my next Samuel Craddock novel, 

and edit those books that I have written first drafts for, but never touched again. Let’s see how successful I am. Note: in the “Stay Health” column, in order to entice myself to finish this post, I gave myself a cookie. Okay, two cookies.

Happy New Year, everyone. 

Hope you have success with all that you hold dear.