(Long Island, N.Y.) 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:
- Go to the grocery store unknowingly sporting two different color socks. (Not even close.)
- Eat three 100 Calorie Snack Packs in one sitting. (Now really, who am I kidding?)
- 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.)
- 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?)
- 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.)
- Whisper in my son’s ear that daddy said he really wanted to take them to the park. (It’s always news to him.)
- 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.)
- Order something described as “smothered” on a menu twice in one week. (Isn’t anything smothered just sinfully delicious?)
- Watch another season of “I Love NY” (Watched season 1 and 2.)
- Get caught eating whipped cream straight from the can at night. (I said “caught”!)
- 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.)
- Get off the phone with my mother and not remembered to a word she said. (That was my mother, right?)
- 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.)
- 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.)
- 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.)
- Tell my kids the gummy bear I just popped in my mouth is “Medicine. Yuckies.” (But there were only 2 left!)
- Polish off a box of Nutter Butter Bites and blame it on the kids. (Well, technically, they did eat a few.)
- 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.)
- Hang up mid-sentence on a long-winded friend and blame it on my bad cell phone connection. (Sorry, Michelle!)
- Pretend I have stomach pains right before it’s time to take the kids to the dentist. (Thanks, sympathetic but un-fooled husband.)
- Authorize a family member to buy Moon Sand for my son for Christmas. (The stuff is a total time-wasting mess-maker.)
- Use the remaining balance of a gift card for the kids—on myself. (It was just a pair of earrings…really.)
- 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.)
- Buy a pair of J-Lo jeans. (I think I was 10+ years out of their demographics 5 years ago!)
- Skip entire paragraphs while reading a book to my kids just to make it go faster. (My 4-year-old snags me every time.)
- 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.)
- Convince myself I’d have more energy if I didn’t work out. (It’s quite the opposite—and I know it.)
- Think jealous thoughts about the fact that my husband’s meatballs are way better than mine. (I make a mean sauce—so there.)
- Let my kids squander expensive band aids on invisible boo-boos.(Or put them on dolls.)
- 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?)
