To Resolve or Not to Resolve

I find New Years resolutions so heavy. It's like setting oneself up with a lot of "shoulds". Should is just not a fun word. It has built in to it, that one really doesn't want to do the the thing in the first place. Not a great way to start any undertaking.

I should pay my bills on time. Of course I should, but I often don't. Saying should never helped me pay my bills. They get paid because I have to pay them. So rather than setting myself up to feel like a failure and weighed down, I'm forgoing resolutions this year. The "have tos" among the "shoulds" will end up getting done.

But it is the start of a new year and a new decade, so something seems in order to get things headed in the right direction. So in place of resolutions, I have decided to make a list of the things I want to do this year. A list of things I like to do, want to try, am curious about or feel will make our lives more fun, more interesting, richer and worth remembering in ten years years.

Here's a few of the things I've come up with:

Read bedtime stories with my daughter

Plant 100 sunflower seeds and see what happens

Learn to make Vegetable Green Curry

Go swimming as often as possible

Finish building the Fairy Circle wall I started

Teach my daughter her numbers and letters

Read at least one good book, maybe a classic I've never tackled (No small feat these days)

Start a full blown vegetable garden with carrots and lettuces

Get a great photo of my daughter and me together (Another not so easy feat)

Play more music

Put on a little lipstick each day so I feel a little more glamorous

Talk to and see my friends more often

Draw with my daughter, draw by myself, draw, draw, draw!