According to Wikipedia – A New Year’s resolution is a tradition, most common in the Western Hemisphere but also found in the Eastern Hemisphere, in which a person resolves to change an undesired trait or behavior, to accomplish a personal goal or otherwise improve their life.  There you have it.  Let’s get started.

Over the years I’ve made lots of resolutions: give up swearing, forsake wine, seal my lips against sarcasm,  become a gourmet cook, learn to speak a foreign language,  apparently sarcasm isn’t a language, keep my mouth shut even when the perfect joke is resting on my tongue.  My score is 0 for 6 on that list.     

Making a personal commitment to be a better person is a worthy goal, but a bit broad.  Being less judgmental would be a good start.  Maybe I could start with the idiot (oops!) who covered my car with gravel while he roared passed me doing 40 MPH in a 25 MPH zone.  When we were both stopped at the red light three blocks away I tried not to smirk.  Maybe he had a legitimate emergency. More likely he was just a butthead.  I can tell this resolution is going to be very difficult to keep.  Maybe I better start with something easier.   

OK, this year I’ve decided, once again, to join the folks resolving to eat healthy. Most of us are repeating this one for the third or fourth time hoping to make it thru January.  

What is healthy eating anyway?  I guess it depends on which magazine you pick up or which diet guru is currently in fashion.   Kale and Kiwis appear to be a favorite this year.  Kiwis are a combination of gritty and slimy and not too appealing, and kale must be an acquired taste. Brussels sprouts are popular now, I Googled Brussels sprouts and the first discussion point listed is ‘How to make Brussels sprouts taste good’.  If this is the starting point I figure, why bother.  Besides, Brussels sprouts are right up there with cauliflower and broccoli as major gas producers.  I really can’t see any up side to these veggies. 

Giving up sugar is a noble goal.  The pantry is full of our favorite breakfast cereal, Frosted Flakes. The word Frosted is a dead giveaway that this might not qualify as health food.  I’m guessing there might be a tad of sugar in that Italian Sweet Cream coffee creamer we pour generously into our coffee. OK, maybe more than a tad but I don’t want to know how much.  Lunch isn’t over until we have a cookie for dessert.  Lately we’ve been splitting one of the huge Pepperidge  Farm cookies.  I guess that’s a start 

Sugar can be obvious or really sneaky, it hides in everything that tastes good.  Where do we draw the line?  Pretend we don’t know there is sugar in soup or the ketchup but give up the cookie?  Not going to happen!

I’m figuring the whole healthy eating thing at our house will last  as long as we don’t have to give up anything we really want to eat.  With that in mind we are ordering our first pizza of the new year with plenty of sausage, for the protein and peppers to give a wave to veggies, but without pepperoni, those hard little discs remind me of tidily winks anyway. 

If you make New Year’s resolutions I hope they make your life better, more fun, or more interesting. Don’t burden yourself with should’s or shouldn’t’s.  Keep it light and enjoy the New Year.  

Happy New Year!

 

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