Ahhh….2015. See, I meant to do my New Year’s Resolutions — or New Year’s Goals or the 2015 Bucket List or To Do List or WHATEVER I’m supposed to call it to make it seem more like I’m setting myself up for positive life changes and not inevitable defeat. My plan was to do that on New Year’s Eve with my beloved daughter. I even got us a special journal to write down our goals and plans and dreams for ourselves and each other. But as the hours passed, whenever I suggested breaking out the journal to create that special mommy/daughter moment, Emma Kelly preferred watching a movie…or playing war…and then playing checkers (which led to a pretty big tantrum but, granted, it was 11:30pm — a good three hours past her bedtime — and she did tell me she didn’t want me to let her win when what she SHOULD have said was for me to let her win without me letting her know I let her win. Lesson learned.)
So by the stroke of midnight and after the pots and pans had been clanged and banged, we went straight to bed. Both of us were out by 12:05 with no New Year’s wishes or dreams or plans made. But that was okay, right? It’s not like we couldn’t do it the next day — on the ACTUAL New Year’s Day. A day to pause and reflect over our successes of 2014, breeze quickly over the things we wish to forget, and plot out our course for the fabulous year ahead! But we didn’t. We slept in, which made us late for Mama’s, who’d slaved for hours over black-eyed peas (for good luck) and collard greens (for money) and macaroni and cheese (for more holiday weight gain). Then Emma Kelly wanted to rush home for a play date with a neighbor (YAY for moving to a neighborhood with kids — one of my successes in 2014!!) And by the time that was over, any thought of breaking out that journal was gone for the day.
And the thing is, while I took down all evidence of Christmas, organized my pantry, organized my daughter’s play room and my closet, binge-watched the first season of “Downton Abbey,” took my daughter to “Annie” (eh…) and “Into the Woods” (LOVED IT!!) and took care of about half of what I set out to do over my two weeks of vacation, we never got around to breaking out that lovely journal to make our plans for 2015. I guess we’ll do that tomorrow? Maybe?? And perhaps one of the things on MY list will be to stop procrastinating. But I think I put that down last year. And probably the year before that. I’m also going to eventually write down that I’m not going to hit the snooze button this year, which I also wrote down last year knowing full well I didn’t mean it. And I sorta know I don’t mean it as I’m typing this now, but I guess I’ll put that to the test first thing in the morning….when we get back to work for the first show of 2015!! And when I do get around to doing that journal business with my daughter, I’ll let you know.