The Resolution, AKA-Better Late Than Never

This is my first post for {W}rite of Passage, I explained the way the "challenges" or writing assignments work in my previous post. And so this week's challenge is as follows:

"Anything about resolutions will do. Do you believe in them? Have you ever done them? Beliefs? Success? Goals?"

Ahh, the annual resolve to make your life better. Usually I joke that I resolve not to make any resolutions, thus breaking the one I make as I make it...because I am a big dork. When it comes down to it, I'm not a big believer in needing a "new year" to define a major change in my life. If I want to make a change I need to be ready and if I truly am, than get out of my way, cause there's no stopping me. Obviously, it's not something I decide very often.

A year ago, I decided to make some resolutions and see how well I did. The idea was to track my progress during the year. I already had a medium to keep me honest, my blog. I'd put them out to the world, so why not? It was good blog fodder if nothing else. It was good in theory. I think I followed up on them once. Maybe twice. In light of this writing assignment I figured I go see how well I did with them, even if I didn't really follow through on my updates. Well, I thought it was a year ago. I lost a year there, with my back surgery and all. Opps! Turns out I made those resolutions for 2008. Boy, I really missed the boat on that one didn't I? I guess my answer is generally I do NOT make resolutions. At least I don't keep track of them very well if I do. But in an effort to continue my experiment here, and because I'm curious now, I will review the ones I made two years ago and let you know how I did.

1) Get our finances in order
a. Meet w/advisor to define what is “out of order” & define & start to implement plan (i.e.—we were under insured, I’ve upped our coverage.)
b. Set up plan to get legal stuff (ie—living trust, define who the kids would go to, etc…)updated.
c. Make sure there’s a date in which this should be completed by.

This might seem like obvious one I did not get done. It's a rough one. It involves money & talking about it, and ewww, where's the fun in that? Really, there isn't any, but I did actually get this one mostly done. I know, who would've thunk? We did get our finances in order. Met with a financial adviser and did some retirement planning. Turns out we were in better shape than we could've hoped. Because of this, I was able to QUIT. MY. JOB. Course, then the economy tanked, but still. We're still in good shape. (The girls just have to get scholarships to college.) The part we haven't done? Living trust. (The important one.)

2) Get the house completely unpacked.
a. Spare bedroom & den still have boxes that haven’t been unpacked. (Gee do you think we still need this stuff?)

You might think this would be the first one I'd do. It's relatively easy, just take it one box at a time. You might think that, but you'd be wrong. Apparently finding room for our crap is more traumatic than dealing with money matters for me. If anything, we are in worse shape than before, w/more crap having been piled on the still packed crap. I've made some headway toward cleaning out in a few areas, but then something happens and crap gets shoved into closets only to have more crap shoved on top of it. Do you see the reoccurring theme here? It's CRAP!!!

3) Get all the rooms decorated; still have pix to be hung, etc…I finally accepted that Daddy ain’t going to pony up so I’m starting to do it myself. (Need to unpack/hang at least one thing a week.)

Well, doesn't that sound like a nice plan. HA! We do have stuff (i.e.-pictures & such) on the walls. I actually got Daddyspeak to do the hanging even. I wouldn't begin to say I've been hanging one thing a week though. And, as we've gone along, I have more to hang, things to change out, etc... I'd say I more or less accomplished this one.

4) Follow the Flylady system again (the other stuff will fall into place if I stick with it)

FAIL. FAIL. FAIL. FAIL. FAIL.
I would guess I'm still stuck in the same rut in regard to my organization, or lack of it. In my defense, I've added much to my plate in the time frame that this resolution was declared. Specifically in regard to my back surgery and this never ending recovery. One might argue that if I would get off my sorry arce, quit my bitching, and just follow her damn system, then the pity party would be over and I could stop making lame ass excuses. One might argue that, and one would be correct, but my house is still a sty.

5) Define house projects we’d like to do, prioritize them, budget them out & move on them (if I do #1 and #4 this will actually start to happen.)

I did do this. And we have been doing them. Hanging stuff was part of this one. We were able to refinance our mortgage last month and are redoing all the windows and doors this month. We'll also be having the outside of the house painted when done. Our house payment is going down a couple hundred a month and I'm going to put that in a bank account so that we can save up for other house projects.

6) Walk for 30 mins at least 3x a week.

Exercise. The standard resolution. Well, diet and exercise. I actually did this one as well. I lost all kinds of weight too. Not sure it was the walking or the pain, but the pounds did come off. I was really good about this until my back pain just got so bad I couldn't handle it anymore. After my surgery, I kept waiting for my pain to get good enough to start doing this again. October was the first time I felt good enough to start walking again. Right when everything gets super busy. Since things got bad again last month, who knows when I'll get back at it again. But for purposes of my follow up, I'd say I accomplished this one.

7) Get hair free (except my head) by EOY.

You've got to be going "Wha?" right about now. But I can say I accomplished my intent of this resolution for sure. I had laser hair removal for my face, legs, arm pits and bikini area. I'm supposed to be hair free for having had it done, but I'm not. I did get through all the treatments, and our bank account felt the hit. I can say, I don't have to shave nearly as often, so that's something, I guess. I would say I accomplished this resolution as well, even if the result was not as complete as I had hoped.

Out of 7 resolutions I accomplished 5. That's pretty good. Better than I would've thought. Maybe there's something to this whole resolution thing. OK, I'm on it. I will be declaring my resolutions for 2010 by end of this week.