7 resolutions

Enough with with the revelries and boisterous carroling.  Let's swallow the last of the chocolate truffles and get down to business.  It's January 4th for God's sake!  Time for the perennial resolutions. 

I read an article in the grocery line advising readers to stick to just 7 New Year resolutions.  More than that is wasteful thinking bound for premature failure. 

Here are my seven:

7. I will finish the family-size box of oatmeal that's been in the pantry for 4 months.  This thing is big as a mother drum.  It should take me about 6 months to finish it off, just in time to make room for the canned goods we'll need for the next hurricane.

6. To balance out the oatmeal resolution, I will commit to drinking the two bottles of excellent red wine that my parents left behind. 

5.  I will submit my short stories and articles to print magazines.  Yes I will.  I am serious.  I mean it this time.

4.  I will put the caps back on the bottle of shampoo and the tube of toothpast every so often.  I can't commit to cap perfection but I am willing to exert occasional self discipline.   I hope this will show my beloved that I might make an acceptable mate. 

3.  I will stop folding laundry.  It will have to fold itself. 

2. I will send my brother's birthday card on time .  I only have one brother and even though we don't see much of each other, I care about him.  What's this business about forgetting his birthday, those lame jokes about "better late than never"?  My brother rides a red tractor in the French countryside.  He has a horse, a nice house with cherry trees and he drives too fast on the freeway; he's a cool dude.  I will email him for no good reason, see what happens.

1. I will be grateful for my beloved, what a good man he is.  I will be grateful for my children, for his, for our parents, our family, our large circle of friends.  It's been a good Christmas.  We'll have a good year.  I can feel it in my bones.