Forget guilt, make those resolutions

Look, I know it's already half-past New Year's.

I know I should have gotten this done days ago. But waiting until Jan. 2 to do New Year's resolutions continues my holiday theme of lagging behind.

For one thing, I didn't put our tree up until four days before Christmas. (What? I was busy.)

I didn't bake cookies until a few hours before Santa's arrival - and then the dough was so good it got eaten before the cookie sheets could reach the oven.

Plus, I didn't send holiday cards until this week. But since I marked out "Merry Christmas" and wrote "Happy New Year" instead, no one will ever suspect I meant to send them three weeks ago.

The thing is that at age 50-plus, I've finally refused to feel guilty about these lapses. I feel guilty about some things, such as the fact that sometimes my cats, my children and my husband make me crazy. And not necessarily in that order.

But I refuse to feel guilty about some Christmas disorganization.

On the other hand, I'm starting to feel guilty about not doing New Year's resolutions. I mean, Christmas came whether I was prepared or not. But if you don't get around to making resolutions, the time gets past you and you find yourself in mid-February without any sort of plan and it's all downhill from there. So if you haven't done your resolutions either, let's do some right now.

How about two resolutions to start? No sense in making more than we can handle.

So, resolution No. 1 - Exercise more. And of course by "more" I mean "more than not exercising." I had good intentions to workout every day in December, but as I told you, I was busy - busy eating cheese balls, cheese straws, double-chocolate peppermint fudge, spiced nuts ... It takes a lot of time to do that much eating. There just wasn't room every day to fit in a 30-minute walk. But in 2009? No excuses. Well, at least until next December rolls around.

And resolution No. 2 - Nip piles in the bud. I'm a great piler of things. I create stacks of unread newspapers and magazines that defy gravity, the many piles of to-be-read books around the house probably are safety hazards and don't even ask me about the unopened mail. I don't know how to tame this problem - as soon as I go through one pile, two more appear - but I'm going to try, even if it means ditching resolution No. 1. I mean, we all have to make sacrifices, right?

Wow. Making New Year's resolutions wasn't so hard, after all.

And next Christmas I may even get the tree up on time.

Cathy Wood is a freelance writer living in the Shoals. For more from her, visit TimesDaily.com.