A New Year's List

• I'm pretty sure last year I wrote a post grousing about New Year's and how it's just an arbitrary day and it's completely meaningless and blah grumble blah.  I still feel that way.  

• Last night was the first night in several years I was still awake at midnight, and the only celebrating Derek and I did was watching old Friends episodes, which is a pretty perfect party, if you ask me.  We did switch over to the re-broadcast of Dick Clark's Rockin' Whatever (because we're in the Central time zone, they re-air the last hour leading up to the ball drop on CBS so we middle-of-the-country peasants can pretend to have fun, too; NBC doesn't bother) to see the freaky celebrities doing completely incomprehensible things and uttering inanities that make absolutely no sense whatsoever.  It makes me believe no one should ever be up that late, although, to be fair, I'm pretty sure those people are just as flummoxing by the light of day.

• I don't make New Year's resolutions.  Well, that's not quite true; I will sometimes enter into a small mental pact with myself to try and maybe perhaps do something over the next year that I'm currently sucking at, if it's not going to be too hard and I feel like it.  It's like a resolution for under achievers.  Last year, while everyone was saying things like "I'm going to do more to lift up my fellow man" and "I'm dedicating 20 hours a month to helping the poor" I was telling myself that in 2013, I'm going to try and shower on a more regular basis.  And I did!  Please keep in mind that at the end of 2012, I had a 2, 4, and 6-year-old and showering- or doing anything for myself- was generally dead last on the day list of Things To Do.  (And if you think that our kids' current ages of 3, 5, and 7 years is practically the same, then I suspect you spend very little actual time around small children.)  So far today I've read- via social media- the resolutions "Ran 9 miles today, going to crush that half-Marathon this year!" and "2014 is going to be the year of letting go for me.  I already feel more peaceful."  Since I'm now getting regular showers, more or less (do you have any idea what a luxury that is?  Regular bathing?), I've moved on to this year's Mental Pact With Myself But Don't Call It A Resolution Because That Smacks Of Accountability And No Way Am I Setting Myself Up For Failure Like That:  Eating more fruits and vegetables.  I started several days ago, and have been doing quite well.  Why yes, I am the most exciting person you know.

Happy Just Another Day That Someone Randomly Assigned Meaning To, everyone!

About the Books Page

As you may or may not have noticed, there's a little tab right up there at the top of the page entitled, "Books."

You further may or may not have noticed that I haven't been updating that page over the past few months.

It's not that I haven't been reading.  Trust me, me not reading is never the answer to any question.  I have, however, been a little short on time recently, and updating the Books page falls to the very bottom of my priority list when I'm busy.  Actually the blog is toward the bottom of the list, anyway, so the Books page is at the bottom of the bottom.  It's far more time consuming than my normal posts, and while I'm always happy when I've done it, carving out that time is sometimes difficult.

Still, I don't like leaving things undone, so when New Year's rolled around, at one point a tiny piece of my tiny brain tentatively put forth the idea of a resolution to update the Books page weekly.

The rest of my brain violently recoiled and threatened that tiny piece with bodily (er, brainily) harm.

This is because I do not do New Year's resolutions.  I have problems with the entire concept of New Year's Day itself.  It has always seemed to me like a very arbitrary holiday, one where someone somewhere closed their eyes, stuck a pin in a calendar, and declared, "There!  That will be the first day of a new year!"

Now, I get that you could say the same thing about most, if not all, holidays.  I realize that Jesus was most likely not born on December 25th, Valentine's Day has become the day that keeps Hallmark in the black, and as for Easter Sunday- even the Church admits they have no idea exactly when Jesus died; Easter Sunday is different every year!  For me, though, those other holidays are about celebrating an event or idea, and I'm okay with that.  New Year's Day- what exactly are we celebrating? I just don't get it.

Wow.  Anyway.

While I did not make a resolution to do so, I will be making more of an attempt to update the Books page on a more regular basis.  This does not affect most of you; I know most of you don't check it- most people don't love to read as much as I do, and that's okay!  I don't know what's wrong with you, but it's okay!  I love you anyway.

So.  I hereby do not resolve but do half-promise to update the Books page somewhat more often than I have in the immediate past.

That's as good as it gets around here, folks.