Happy New Year! Time once again for new resolutions and renewed resolve. I kept 8 of my 12 resolutions from aught-seven, let’s see how I did in aught-eight:

1. I shall drink more water and milk, and less soda, pop, and sweet tea. Kept, but once again, I need to go for a bigger margin between the good and the bad.

2. At the end of this year, I will weigh less than 192 pounds. Nope. I was down to 202 at the end of September, the clothes were fitting better again, and then I damn-near broke my foot playing soccer. I went to clear the ball out and the bad guy deadlegged me. I missed most of the rest of that game, two of the last three games of the season, and wore a brace part-time. Didn’t help. Anyhow, boom, right back up to 212.

3. I shall put all the books I’ve bought but not yet read on a particular shelf, and I shall either read, sell or give away more than half of them. Nope. I may give up on this one. There’s just too many of them, and I keep getting more.

4. I shall practice signing my name right-handed. Kept. The signature is almost totally illegible, but I did pratice.

5. I shall cook puerco pibil at least once and then fine-tune the recipe. Kept. I cooked it exactly once, and it was my best yet. I made some minor changes: I replaced one of the lemons with a lime and I used only one habanero pepper (two peppers overpower the other flavors).

6. For those occasions when people switch to a foreign tongue in my presence, I shall learn to say, “What makes you think I don’t speak _________?” in three languages. Still a nope. I’m going to get rid of this one, and perhaps look into relearning a language.

7. I shall submit my National Board Portfolio before the March 31st deadline. Kept, and it paid off. I am a National Board Certificated Teacherer.

8. I shall replace my computer this summer. Kept, a few months earlier than expected. My old laptop took its final bow back in February, and I replaced it with a MacBook. I like it.

9. I shall write a journal entry at least once per week. Nope. I ended up with fifty entries, so I was two short if I were going for an average.

10. I shall fix the power lock button on my car. Kept. Well, “kept” in the sense that it’s fixed. Dad fixed it.

11. I shall get the rest of my old journal into the Archives. Kept, though now I think I should add a “2008 Archives” page.

12. I shall make a real twelfth resolution before June 30th. Kept, and it was a good one: “If a task or chore will take less than one minute to accomplish, I shall do it immediately.” Now, have I kept that? I’ve been getting better at it, and it’s led to less clutter, less procrastination, and less forgetfulness.

Once again, eight of twelve kept. Here we go again, starting with the holdovers from last year:

1. I shall drink more water and milk, and less soda, pop, and sweet tea.

2. At the end of this year, I will weigh less than 192 pounds.

3. I shall put all the books I’ve bought but not yet read on a particular shelf, and I shall either read, sell or give away more than half of them.

4. I shall cook something I’ve never cooked before, and cook it at least three times to fine-tune the recipe.

5. I shall write at least one journal entry each week. I will not go seven days without posting an entry.

6. I shall archive my 2008 journal entries in the same manner as the 2005-07 entries, and write “On Dilbert, Part Two,” and write “How to make everything perfect forever, Part Two.”

7. If a task or chore will take less than one minute to accomplish, I shall do it immediately.

Now I need some new ones…

8. On weekends and days off, I shall awaken and get out of bed before 9:30 AM.

9. I shall fly on an airplane for the first time in my conscious memory, in order to attend Captain Patton’s wedding.

10. I shall visit Chicagoland, and feast on real hot dogs, and real pizza, and real beef sammiches. And see friends and family along the way.

11. I shall put my U.S. history powerpoint presentations back online, in hopes that doing so will make a difference.

12. I shall make a real twelfth resolution before May 30^th, 2009, and shall keep at least nine of these resolutions (inclusive).

Here goes.

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