new years resolutions.

i was at a dinner party last friday night. 5 couples. one guy said, so.... .who has a  resolution for the new year .... and no one said anything .... it was weird ... and finally said ... oh come on people! none of you have a resolution? i have about 12 ... plenty to share! how can you NOT have a resolution, a plan, a dream, a goal? .... and they all kinda laughed at me ... and quizzed me .... why did i have so many? it was just more to not work out! ... and i explained that if their resolutions weren't working out, they were doing them wrong!! make it something you WANT badly enough to actually do it!  and then i tossed out that last year i had read 87 books. 87. which was about 20 times more than the table's average!  ..... i just said that my resolution was to read every day and as many books as possible ... if it had been 63 books, would they have been unimpressed? no ... that still would have been fine ... if it had been 112? i think it would have been the same surprise as 87 was.  the point is, that aiming for a big target, even if you don't hit it, you did a lot of work to get close .... like, if your goal was to lose 90 pound and you lost 95, was that a fail? don't think so.

in 2011, when i first started keeping track on this blog, i read 100 books

2012, i read 103....

2013, i read ONLY 76 ... but how big is that? 76 books in a year is more than one a week.

in 2014, i read 87 .....

in 2015, so far i've read one. i'm right on track for a big year of reading again.

but other resolutions?

last year i did art more than 100 times (professional)

last year i worked out more than 200 times (physical fitness/health)

last year i went out to lunch more than 50 times with girlfriends (emotional well being) 

last year i weaned myself off artificial sweeteners ....no diet coke since april .... (nutrition)

so this year ... 

i have the books again ... 

and i have some exercise goals .... 

and i have a new one. it's hard and horrid and i know i need to do it and i want to do it ...... 

and it is a super traditional new years resolution that usually fails!! .... i am going to clean and organize my house .... i am going to touch every single thing in my house ... in every drawer, closet, cupboard, shelf ... everything, everywhere ... i am tossing things as fast as i can ... or i hope to..... i 've started in my kitchen/dining room/living room. all sorts of cabinets have been emptied, cleaned, restored .... i've not donated anything yet, but have a big pile ... and threw a bunch away .... 

and here's the junk drawer from the kitchen ... not junky at all ... the label has been in there for ages ... just generally hidden by mounds of stuff.....

but that wasn't too hard .... the hard will be the basement ... the finished basement that i call my studio ... and the unfinished (how did we let it get like that?) part .... THOSE will be hard .... crazy hard. but based on my new years resolution track record, i've got this.