I resolved long ago never to resolve.  This was not an impulsive decision but a well thought out reversal in my thinking after years of failed New Year’s resolutions. This idea, not unlike my daughter’s comment  that my ramble about the holidays blurring together https://askmrsmom.com/?m=201311, is not original and is even perhaps “cliche” as I believe she labeled that Halloween post.

But this year, I am inspired to get back to a reasonable sort of resolving so I added a twist to my resolutions.  I am going to try to do things that will alleviate stress, improve my personal relationships with others and maybe even increase my life span.  No giving up stuff that only improves my heath or happiness rather than improving the world around me like many Christians do at Lent. As in, giving up chocolate (not for Jesus but to lose weight), stop drinking (not for Jesus but to give your liver a rest), reducing salt intake (not for Jesus’s blood pressure but for yours),etc. This time, I tried to think of things that would make me a better person not a better looking person.

Really hard for me to conceptualize, but I’m gonna go for it.

In keeping with my Christmas shopping list, I’ll simplify these perhaps preposterously lofty ideas into list form. Just share my aspirations and let you know which one, or few, I can actually keep longer than a week or day or five minutes. I’m hoping to give it the ole college try and if I fall flat on my face, well at least that, too, does nothing for my personal appearance or selfish interests.

This 2014, I, Nancy Noble Peck, resolve to attempt to:

1.  Make amends with an estranged friend.

2.  Commit to any sort of exercise that raises my heart rate, even if it is running up and down my front steps once a day.

3.  Talk less and listen more.  Stop interrupting or finishing others’ sentences.  Those actions seem motivated to prove you are smarter than everyone else or have ESP.  Or both.

4.  Let my adult children fend for themselves and make adult decisions and live with the consequences without my opinion, suggestions or intervention. I have realized at last that I can’t help them avoid pain and they certainly can’t learn from my mistakes.

5.  Do things out of love, not obligation.  Hoping for genuine, not guilt-driven, kindness.

6.  Judge less and accept more.

7.  Do something everyday I am afraid of.  Even if it is as simple as leaving the house not wearing mascara.

8.  Learn to fly without the confidence boost of drugs and alcohol.

9.  Stay in the moment; be present.  It’s all we can be certain of really.

10.  Take care of me and let everyone else figure it out.  Finally accept that  I can’t change others but changing me forces them to change their reactions to me.

Overly ambitious?  Sure.  Self- serving?  Hopefully not.  Banal?  Have to ask my eldest.

And if you don’t like them? Tough. You are not my friend. And don’t say you are. I know better. I am going to drive, not walk, to the grocery store after, of course, I apply two coats of mascara. But first, I have to stop at my daughter’s house and tell her my blog is my blog and her opinion is one of thousands and if she doesn’t stop feeding her youngest, he is going to explode and to let her three-year-old watch some TV and have a hot dog while doing it, for God’s sake. I’ve got so much to orchestrate for my son’s wedding, I have no time to run her life and his. And my youngest, I need to fly out to see her and help her juggle all she has to accomplish this year. Do I have to be everywhere at once and chug a glass of wine to get there?! Man, there aren’t enough hours in the day.

11.  Start tomorrow.