2013 Or Bust

well, it's now january 18, 2013, so i may just bust as the year is already 4.9% over.  but first, i will complain.  i hate new year's eve.  i hate countdowns.  i hate staying up late.  i hate nostalgia.

BUT i like new year's day.  i like sales on shiny happy things.  i like eating black-eyed peas for good luck.  i like making lots of silly exaggerated jokes about how this is the best sale and best black-eyed peas i've seen all year!

and i like an excuse to try to be better.  this year:

I WILL live more frugally, more simply, and more naturally.  don't go too overboard on me.  basically, i want to be (more) the type of person who doesn't kill more than she can eat, and who uses the entire buffalo.  first stop -- making my own all-natural cleaner out of vinegar and citrus peels.  FYI you can stop your search here, "clean more" is nowhere to be found on this list.  but when i do clean, I WILL do it with something that my kids can lick off the floor.

i've also already started stockpiling vegetable scraps in the freezer so i can make my own stock.  i WILL have a bouillon-free 2013!  i accept this is probably the lamest new years resolution ever, but i like to cook and i'm thirty.  so whatev.

i'm toying with composting, but am not committed enough to put it in capital letters.  the thought of voluntarily keeping garbage, yard waste, and worms around 2 curious toddlers is a little scary.  especially when you consider the mess that can be made from a mere teaspoon of sticky, purple dimetapp.  nor am i sure what i could do with compost when our sparse vegetation grows happily out of a pile of rocks.

along these lines, I WILL continue to be easily entertained.  and I WILL appreciate the little things.  i am inspired by aaron's appreciation for antiques and rarities.  over the holidays, he was gifted two very simple old bottle openers that he had previously found in a drawer that were made decades ago in philadelphia when it was a huge brewing operation.  before present-opening had concluded, he was already on the internet researching and spewing further obscure facts re their origin and composition.  i haven't seen them since we got home, so i can only assume he hid them somewhere safe that neither the kids or i can tamper with.  later in the weekend, he spent an hour discussing with my mom's husband's sister's husband's sister a  photograph of her father in front of what may or may not have been a model T.  i'm not sure what the outcome was, but A was all-in.  anyway, if you have any old crap that you want to have a good home with someone who appreciates it, will it to my husband, and he will appreciate the hell out of it, and hide it from the rest of us.  (but we still like the weiner's circle and ice cream cones, so there!)

I WILL live more calmly and with less control.  realistically, what do i control anyway?

I WILL massively deplete my wardrobe.  although i fit into everything, i know in my heart of hearts that while i enjoy and benefit from retail therapy, i can easily exist in clemson t-shirts, and clemson t-shirts alone.  and tights and boots.

side note: after wondering wtf "heart of hearts" means, i learned that the phrase was spoken by hamlet to refer to the "heart of my heart," i.e. the center or core of his heart.  this is where hamlet stores rational men who are not slave to passion.  then, when he needs to, he busts them out of his chest like alien to unleash on his foes.  but i digress...

I WILL get more fresh air.  simple and delicious adventure waiting to happen.  i will not get more exercise though.  exercise is boring and contrived and i get all the exercise my exhausted and wasted body can handle chasing panzer full-speed on his bicycle down the sidewalk, holding mohs protectively in a constant arm-lock while he wiggles and giggles and strains to get his jaws on something, and unlocking secret levels of just dance 4.  i may even get one of the 2 brand new pairs of fluorescent running shoes i bought last year out of its box this year.

I WILL write more.  or at least as much as i can.  if nothing else, someday mohs and panzer are going to find this and laugh hysterically or cry miserably at their origins.  just remember, i love you, boys.

I WILL keep up.  in 2012, i did not manage to watch a single clemson football game on the tv.  but i did become the last person on earth to see that asian guy dance gangnam style, read the hunger games (but only book one, and never the movie!), and discover the magic of lipliner.  maybe in 2013, i will finally find out what an "angry bird" is.

I WILL stay true to the things i love.  there's a fine balance between keeping up and hanging in.  fluorescent will likely no longer be in style by the time i break out my new shoes -- but it's unlikely i will outgrow that trend a second time.  red rooster peanut butter cookies.  dancing along to yo-gabba-gabba with my kiddos.  howard stern interviewing politicians and sex symbols alike.  red eye shadow and glitter.  pizza pizza pizza.  debating the relative merits of the above in economic versus psychological theory.  I WILL be there.