You’re a cow… go lick yourself! I mean… Happy New Year.

Lara Debruyn Photography

Year after year we set ourselves up for failure with resolutions of losing weight, spending more time with family and friends, quitting bad habits, learning new things, getting organized, going to the gym, saving money, etc. By mid January we’ve failed and we’re back to our typical selves… but is there really anything wrong with who we are?

Here’s my list for 2011 so I don’t feel like I’m setting myself up for more failure… chances are I can accomplish everything on it. 

1.  I will check Facebook everyday unless for some reason Facebook fails or I’m out of reach somehow like in hip surgery or repelling my I-will-be-skinny-by-summer ass down the side of a mountain but even in those instances I have my blackberry so chances are I’ll still be able to check and possibly even update my status everyday.

2. I will think of Tony Power every time I see 11:11 on the clock as I’ve done for twenty five years so I’m pretty sure I’ll continue it through this year as well.  (If you want to screw somebody up tell them to always think of you at 11:11 which is potentially twice per day… they’ll curse you for years… but at least you’ll be thought of!)

3. I will continue to tell people I’m “living the dream” as eventually I will start to believe it even though we all know I’ve had a shit time of it the last few years but it’s getting better all the time and one of these days I’ll say I’m “living the dream” and low and behold I’ll realize I actually am!

4. I’ll continue to use the words “amazing”, “wonderful”, “beautiful” and “fabulous” in my blog posts even though I’ve used the word amazing 116 times, wonderful 107 times, beautiful 63 times and fabulous 40 times which is interesting since I only used “angry” once.  

5. I’ll continue to use three dots when I write even though I’m not really sure what they mean though when I read my writing out loud I pause when there are dots… similar to a comma but not really a comma.  Sometimes it’s meant to be a pause but other times it’s a suggestion that there’s more in there I’d like to tell you but I’m afraid if I say something I shouldn’t it will end up in court and I really don’t like going to court.  I’ve 4,667 instances of dot dot dot in the blog which multiplied by three that makes 12,851 dots which leaves a lot of room for pausing… or wondering what the heck I’m leaving out!

6. I’ll be thankful for the women in my life since for a very long time I was attracted to women who shouldn’t be in my life but now I’ve got these amazing girlfriends surrounding me who I’m forever grateful for.  I’d shower them with affection and presents but they’d probably find that weird even though I don’t know how else to tell them how happy I am to know them except to write about them from time to time and share a drink or two.

7.  Ditto for mom and dad, my brothers and my family which is constantly expanding and when I say that it’s because my cousins keep giving birth to these amazing, wonderful, fabulous, beautiful babies.

8.  I’ll apologize for the mess left in my car even though I sometimes drive through a drive thru just so that I can use their receptacle containers to ditch my garbage so you should realize it would be worse if I didn’t drink so much drive thru tea.  I need a shop vac to clean out the garbage and dog hair and realize if I stopped drinking so much take out tea and purchased an insulated mug I’d probably save myself a lot of money… possibly even enough to purchase a shop vac.  Somehow the complaining about not having a portable vacuum and the mess left in my car is part of who I am so just bear with me every time we go somewhere as I’m going to apologize for the mess but I won’t stop taking my hairy dog for drives (even though I know I should be taking her for walks.)   

9.  I’ll wash my hair with dove shampoo and do little else to make it shiny but tell everyone that I brush it 100 times per night just so I feel less guilty when people ask me how my hair always looks good when really I don’t do anything to it but can count my blessing for great hair genes even though I wish I could count my blessings for great ass genes and wish more people in this world would notice hair.

10.  I’ll try not to use the saying “You’re a cow… go lick yourself” even though Little-One was in Africa and took a photo of a cow stopped on the side of the road with what appears to be an itch and a need to lick its underbelly which made me laugh my head off on New Years Eve just before I wanted to write a whiney post about all the things I’m going to change to make this year better when really there isn’t anything I need to change cause it’s definitely going to be better than 2010 and when things bother me I’ll say “You’re a cow… go lick yourself” but hopefully I won’t have to say it very often.

I know 2011 going to be good ’cause just in the amount of time I wrote this post… someone came to my door with a flyer and picked up the knocked down snowman ornament strewn across my front steps and just this second, the little girl who lives two doors over came and brought me a “homemade flower” she’d made from a red napkin and low and behold… I’m living the dream.
            
Happy New Year… don’t change a thing!