NEW YEAR, NEW ME

New Year, New Me

Every New Year, I play along with the status quo and make that silly list of stock resolutions: Eat better, exercise more, be a better person, blah, blah, blah. But you know what? All those wonderful things I planned to do-- just don’t get done. So this year, I decided to try another trick to help me make some much needed improvements in the coming year. I’m going to mix it up and put a whole new twist on my New Year’s resolutions: a handy-dandy, detailed To Do(N’T) list.

Here’s some of the things I resolve NOT to do in 2008:

1. Go to the grocery store unknowingly sporting two different color socks. (Not even close.)
2. Eat three 100 Calorie Snack Packs in one sitting. (Now really, who am I kidding?)
3. Tell my husband the grocery store didn’t have hot sauce and I guess they were out for some reason. (Ok, fine. FINE. I forgot.)
4. Get mad at my husband for drowning the food I cook with hot sauce. (Why not just eat hot sauce a la carte and save me the trouble?)
5. Get mad at my husband for getting mad at me because I got mad that he put hot sauce all over his dinner. (Follow me here.)
6. Whisper in my son’s ear that daddy said he really wanted to take them to the park. (It’s always news to him.)
7. Whisper in my daughter’s ear “Tell daddy you really, really want to go to Friendly’s again. (Cool. Since it’s her idea, I don’t have to cook tonight.)
8. Order something described as “smothered” on a menu twice in one week. (Isn’t anything smothered just sinfully delicious?)
9. Watch another season of “I Love NY” (Watched season 1 and 2.)
10. Get caught eating whipped cream straight from the can at night. (I said “caught”!)
11. Tell my kids that “The Man” will be mad and come yell at them if they act up in the restaurant. (Yep, the dreaded “Man” strikes again.)
12. Get off the phone with my mother and not remembered to a word she said. (That was my mother, right?)
13. Throw a handful of M&M’s on the floor and let me kids hunt around and eat them just to buy myself a few quiet/questionless minutes to answer an important call. (At 10 am.)
14. Drag out the vacuum cleaner and display tons of cleansing products out on the counter to make it look like I was cleaning all day. (Practice exhausted, over-worked look in the mirror.)
15. Tell my kids that some websites close on the weekends so they don’t bug me to use the computer. (Their websites are also closed on holidays/after 6pm and are subject to the amount of patience I’ve got that hour.)
16. Tell my kids the gummy bear I just popped in my mouth is “Medicine. Yuckies.” (But there were only 2 left!)
17. Polish off a box of Nutter Butter Bites and blame it on the kids. (Well, technically, they did eat a few.)
18. Buy a pair of designer stilettos at Bloomingdale’s without even looking at the price tag. (Nearly faint when I take a peek at the receipt I just signed as I’m walking out the door.)
19. Hang up mid-sentence on a long-winded friend and blame it on my bad cell phone connection. (Sorry, Michelle!)
20. Pretend I have stomach pains right before it’s time to take the kids to the dentist. (Thanks, sympathetic but un-fooled husband.)
21. Authorize a family member to buy Moon Sand for my son for Christmas. (The stuff is a total time-wasting mess-maker.)
22. Use the remaining balance of a gift card for the kids—on myself. (It was just a pair of earrings…really.)
23. Take the batteries out of noisy toys and say it’s broken. (Never, ever buy a walkie-talkie that has a beep so loud—it makes your ears bleed.)
24. Buy a pair of J-Lo jeans. (I think I was 10+ years out of their demographics 5 years ago!)
25. Skip entire paragraphs while reading a book to my kids just to make it go faster. (My 4-year-old snags me every time.)
26. Throw away an old casserole dish sitting in the back of the fridge rather than cleaning it out. (Green meatloaf was not a special dish for St. Patty’s Day.)
27. Convince myself I’d have more energy if I didn’t work out. (It’s quite the opposite—and I know it.)
28. Think jealous thoughts about the fact that my husband’s meatballs are way better than mine. (I make a mean sauce—so there.)
29. Let my kids squander expensive band aids on invisible boo-boos.(Or put them on dolls.)
30. Tell the kids that the Dunkin Donuts drive thru is only serving coffee for mommy and broccoli bits. (Lies, I know. But who wants to hear them plead/cry/beg for donuts when they’ve eaten too many sweet already that day? I don’t. “Sorry guys, they just ran out of Munchkins…but they’ve got broccoli bits. Anyone still hungry?)

Janene Mascarella

January 02, 2008 12:54 AM Eastern

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