Resolutionizing the world....mine, at least

New Year’s Resolutions are interesting things to me.
I’ve always made them. My whole life is filled with New Year’s resolutions that haven’t been kept. Just TONS of them. I once made the resolution not to swear. That was a complete wash. I should probably work on it more and do it less, but it’s still a resolution that didn’t get kept. I’ve made resolutions to write more, stay in touch with friends better and all sorts of other lofty goals.

Recently though, in the past 4 or 5 years, resolutions have been much easier to keep. Last year, Todd and I resolved to minimize…and we’ve kept to that pretty well. We have newer “stuff”, but we downsize regularly and donate all the time. It feels good to do “spring cleaning” a couple times a year. And it just makes sense. We have so much crap we don’t use. I don’t even know why we have some of the stuff we have. Yesterday alone I threw away a box and a half worth of crap. It was amazing…to think I’d been holding on to some of that junk since I was 20 or 21. Sheesh.

The year before that, we resolved not to spend any of our “date nights” at chain restaurants. We really only eat a local places or local chains (Yak & Yeti, Thai Basil, that sort of thing). It’s the very rare occasion that we eat at a chain place. We love trying new and interesting food and love even more supporting local businesses. There are just too many amazing restaurants near us to waste a date night at Applebee’s. In the last two years, I can think of maybe a handful of times that we’ve eaten “chain” and that’s either because we have a gift card or were invited by someone. It’s been pretty awesome.

And the year before that was the resolution to not eat fast food. That one has stuck really well. It’s just better for us, nutritionally. I think the only times we’ve eaten fast food have been on our way to/from SLC. Other than that, it’s not really something we do. It’s been nice.

This year, we’re to pick five things we’ve never done but always wanted to do and do them.
Mine include:
1. Running the Bolder Boulder (if my knees will allow for that).
2. Seeing a Broadway show (we’re going to see Phantom of the Opera in February)
3. Learn to shoot a gun.
4. Learn to golf.
5. Ski at Park City.
Runners-up are:
1. Run the Republic (doing that in February).
2. Seeing a Britney Spears concert (doing that in April…in Vegas)
3. Learn to crack a whip.

We’ll continue the tradition of picking 5 things from here on out. It’s what we tend to do with our resolutions…as I think is the point, actually. Make one and stick to it. One of these years, I’m going to make a resolution to travel somewhere once a month. That would be amazing!

So what are YOU up to in ’09?