Resolution Rewind

At the beginning of the year, I, like many others, made a list of New Year's Resolutions. Twenty of them, in fact. My hope was that I could accomplish five to ten of them.

Let's see how I did. The ones in bold, I completed. The ones in italics, I attempted.

2008 New Year's Resolutions:

1. Get more organized. It's nearly impossible to get and stay organized when every single person in your house seems to be working against you.

2. Clean out closets. I totally did this. Not that you can tell now.

3. Get rid of unneeded stuff. I've been purging and purging like you wouldn't believe, but there is still just so much stuff that needs to go.

4. Win BAMs Blog contest. I did this one, too. Actually, it got down to two of us, and after a few months of waiting to see who would forget to blog, we decided to just call it a draw and split the winnings. Of course, no one ever paid up, so we haven't been able to split anything yet. (For what it's worth, I still haven't missed a day.)

5. Lose weight. Aim for 135. I tried. And I was doing pretty well for a couple of weeks, but then my new meds caught up to me and totally killed my metabolism.

6. Break Katie’s pacifier habit. The first attempt was unsuccessful, but the second attempt was surprisingly easy.

7. Drink more water. I'm still working on this one. Coke just tastes so darn good.

8. Try to clean more. I do clean more, actually. Just not a whole lot more. Especially since I get no recognition for what I do.

9. Don’t do crack. This one is always a piece of cake!

10. Remember to take iron pills more often. I tried, but at some point, they disappeared on me.

11. Organize recipes and get rid of bulky cookbooks. I did start this, but I'm still working on it. I need more help from Phil with this one.

12. Cook dinner more often. I was cooking dinner more often until Phil started working normal business hours and getting home in time to cook dinner for the family.

13. Get a family portrait taken. Sadly, though it has been talked about many, many times, there has been no progress made on this front. It's pretty much impossible to schedule an appointment when I never have a clue when my step-son is going to be around. His mother is VERY uncooperative and contantly changing our plans.

14. Take charge of recycling. Set up a recycling center. I started this; Phil destroyed it.

15. Organize refrigerator magnets. Just like the closets, I did this but you'd never guess it now.

16. Make “To Do” lists and try to stick to them. I did this for a while, but it didn't work out very well.

17. Stop buying stuff we don’t need just because it is “cute” or “neat.” This was surprisingly not that difficult.

18. Have children pick oranges and give them away to the needy. I tried this, but those darn kids and husband of mine don't like to share.

19. Get trees trimmed. I did quite a bit of this myself, but there is still a lot of work to do.

20. Take time for myself. Get out of the house by myself at least once a week. I wasn't doing very well with this one until I joined Mary Kay. Now, I get to leave my house all by myself at least once a week to attend a meeting. That counts, right? I do enjoy my meetings.

I think I did pretty well. I completed seven out of twenty, and attempted all but one of the rest. Plus, I did a lot of things that I am very proud of that weren't even on the list.