May your New Year bring you joy-

I tend to view New Year’s resolutions as self-defeating prophecies personally. But then again I also consider stupidity to be the chlorine in the gene pool…

Goals in and of themselves I find a laudable thing, truly. It’s the setting of sweeping, all encompassing goals I find to be self-defeating. I’m not sure if it’s because I am by nature a pragmatist or it happens to be merely an aspect of my controlling nature, but not having a definable road map to achieve a goal is a recipe for failure as I see it. All of that said, I generally do not make New Years resolutions because intentionally setting myself up to fail seems rather silly to me. This year however I have made an exception to that hard and fast rule, I have indeed decided to make a few.

Those of you that have been listening to me whine for the past 12 months realize that on the whole 2008 sucked royally for me and mine. And when I heard they were actually adding a second to the clock this year, thus making 2008 one second longer to balance the atomic clock, I quite literally screamed “NOOOOO!” enough already, begone with you foul year, I wish to see nothing but the screen door hitting your misbegotten ass on the way out! Ahem, where was I… Oh yes, resolutions.

I really will be taking better care of myself this coming year. I fear I am in danger of not only total exhaustion, but also developing a major case of martyr syndrome. Let’s face it, that’s really an amazingly unattractive thing socially, and surely not a particularly charming one emotionally for those you inflict yourself upon. A large part of this will be reacquainting myself with the word NO. Deceptively small, but incredibly powerful my little friend is. While not turning my back on those I love and the duties I have taken upon myself, I will be recalling the concept of limits, and trying to put them into practice.

I further resolve to remember to tell the people I love and appreciate far more frequently how much I love them. While I don’t really think I’ve gone so far down the self absorbed route that I ignore any of them, I could frankly be a lot more proactive in the letting them know department… To all my friends in this lively little virtual family we’ve created, my genuine and heartfelt love and thanks for supporting me throughout all the fun and games of the last 12 months. And to those of you forced to listen to my dulcet tones whining away on the other end of the phone, your patience and love has been a gift beyond reckoning and truly kept me sane. Or in my case what I pass off as sanity.

Be safe, be well and peace and all good blessings upon all your houses. Now, if you'll excuse me I need to go change into an evening gown so I can proceed to get drunk on my own couch.