Out With The Old, In With The New ...

I spent most of the day cleaning. You know ... ridding the house of last year's juju, and getting it spic and span for this year's chaos. Don't you do that? I figured that it's a brand new year and since I was stuck in the crapper yesterday, I couldn't quite do all that I wanted to rid our house of any negative energy and embrace the new year with vim and vigor.

So early this morning I began scrubbing the bathrooms. Then I vacuumed, swiffered, and washed the floors. I made a huge shopping trip to Trader Joe's. I even did five loads of laundry ... though I secretly did that today so that Matt would do all the folding. He's better at it than I am (and honestly cares FAR more than I do if the clothes are folded as neatly as a Gap store's inventory). Oh yeah, I also changed everybody's toothbrush. With the amount of money I'm paying for orthodonture, I figure that everyone should take pride in their pearly whites. Right?

With 2012 already underfoot, I hesitate to move forward without acknowledging my lack of published New Year's goals. Everybody has them right? While I've never addressed mine aloud, I honestly ask if people truly hold others accountable? Aside from my brave husband, I wonder who would call me out for not getting my tush to the gym four days a week or who's going to stay on me to update my blog in a timely manner?

Since I assume you all care about my resolutions this year, I'm going to write them here for the world to see. In no particular order, they are ...

* To complain less. Unless it's about my kids. My husband. My house. Or my car. Then all bets are off and I'm letting the expletives fly.

* To drink more ____. You can fill in the blank of whatever beverage you feel I should be consuming. Though if you don't say, "wine" or "Starbucks caramel macchiattos" then you really don't know me, and you shouldn't be left to fill in the blank.

* To stay in touch with family and friends. Unless it means that I have to initiate the call ... or email ... or dare I admit, stop screening my calls, to which I'll remind you of how good I was with that in 2011.

* To answer emails in a timely manner. Ha! Remember that I have regular internet now, not that cruddy third world internet that I had back in India ... It's taken me an entire year to perfect the art of evasion whereby I blame everything on having three kids, a husband who works insane hours, and little free time to do anything else.

* To update my blog more frequently. See above retort.

* To be more assertive. Oh goodness forbid! I threw this in just to see if you were still reading ...

* To go to the gym 2-3 times per week. Since I have a free membership how much Jewish guilt should I have if I don't regularly make it? More importantly, is Jewish guilt retroactive?

* To not take myself too seriously. Starting with ...