Another new post about the new year

I don't usually read US News and World Report, but I happened to get a chance to read their New Year issue that included a list of 50 ways to change your life in 2009.  It was a fairly exhaustive list including tasks such as learning Russian, reading about Lincoln (this February marks his 200 birthday), riding a bike to work, and hanging your clothes to dry instead of using an electric dryer (you can save 50 cents for every load you hang to dry.)  For the full list follow this link.  One of the tasks that I thought I might take on was writing a journal of one-liners.  Not jokes, just one sentence or two about what I'd done that day or how I felt.  I've never been great about keeping a diary, but I feel like limiting my entries to just one sentence should help me be more consistent.  Here's what US News had to say about writing what they called a "clothes hanger journal."

Luann Robins, a 79-year-old grandmother of five who lives in Rhinelander, Wis., has kept such records for most of her life, storing her five-year diaries in a cedar chest at the foot of her bed. "Sometimes they bring back great memories that I might have forgotten," says Robins. Her journals are filled with comments on the weather, odd events, and her children's and grandchildren's news.

Through her minimalist journaling, Robins has kept a clear-eyed account of her history and is working on memoirs for her children to read.

I began mine on Sunday and if you are still looking for a New Year's resolution consider this your challenge.  

Just, Margaret

Resolve...

As a result of my extended absence I have several thoughts I've been saving up to share.  Among them is my resolution for the year.  Here's a post that I began writing in preparation for New Years, but never exactly got back to until now.  As it is still January, I think its still relevant.  

 [smile] 

When I was little the act of making resolutions was part and parcel of New Years Eve.  Like stockings at Christmas, hunting eggs at Easter, or black-eyed peas on New Years Day, the act of making a resolution was just something we did.  I remember resolving to write in a diary every day or be nicer to my little sisters.  The regular stuff.  Over the last couple of years I've just stopped making resolutions.  I mean really what is the point most are forgotten in a matter of days, but beyond that its seems pretty irrational to set the course of a year upon a few ideas that may or may not be that well thought out.   Besides who I am on the first day of the year is never who I am on December 31st.  Now I guess a resolution I could live with would be to resolve to make resolutions each day and try to live into them during that 24 hour period.   

Anyway, after giving you all the reasons against making resolutions, I'm going to make a resolution.  On Christmas Day, my Pop said that to love must begin by loving another and letting that love be returned.  A couple of days later I was watching Expiration Date, a movie I received from my parents for Christmas, that was kinda about the same thing.  Anyway I resolved to make this my year of loving radically and perhaps more importantly learning how to be loved... who knows what might happen.   

Just, Margaret