Resolutions -- Not!

Saturday brings us to New Year's Eve. This holiday excites me the most because there is no shopping for others involved, I am tired of eating and so is the rest of the family so I do not have to cook, and the tree can finally come down and stop dropping its prickly needles on my carpet.

New Year's Eve is a time of reflection while New Year's Day is a time for resolutions. I do not make resolutions because I believe it puts too much pressure on a person when they are trying to embrace change.

So take it easy. Reflect and reward yourself for what you have accomplished this past year and open your arms to welcome the winds of change. I am not a superstitious person but have always believed that the frame of mind I am in when the new year rolls in will follow me throughout the rest of the year. So here is to positive thinking and may 2012 make me smile everyday.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Winding Down

And so it begins. The shopping is finished and the gifts are wrapped. This year I did something  I never do, I shopped during Christmas week. Yes, I actually went into the malls and a few stores without so much as giving thought to what I would encounter. I was pleasantly surprised to find a convenient parking spot wherever I went and the crowds were not too bad. It felt good to get out amongst others and embrace some holiday cheer.

What I also realized is how close the end of 2011 is and how I must hunker down and bang out a manuscript worthy of submission. I know I have been slacking but it is considered research when one is not writing. Isn't it? I am not one for making resolutions...but wait a minute...I am getting ahead of myself. I am that excited to begin work on a new story, the problem is which one. I will use the remainder of 2011 to help me sort that out.

So, this week I will have cleaned the house only to mess it up again on Christmas morn as gift wrapping paper covers the carpet and cookie crumbs find their way into every nook and cranny of the living room set.

I wish you peace, love, and light as you embrace your respective holiday. And may your time be well spent with family and friends.

Music in the Air

Christmas is approaching fast and my family is frantic because I refuse to tell them what I want for a gift. For some reason they do not believe that I do not want anything. The house is barely decorated. A naked tree stands in a crowded corner as lights and ornaments collect dust in the basement. It's not that I am a Scrooge but the fanfare of the holiday has lost its luster as the years go by. There is something about becoming an adult that diminished the magic of Christmas.

So this week I made a determined attempt to banish the scrooginess and give it my best to create a little magick. I vacuumed up the fallen pine needles and mentally switched gears. I lugged up the lights and tree top, all tested well except for one strand of lights so this year the tree will have to do with a little less brilliance.

As I wound the ancient strands of lights around the tree I began to hum, Celine Dion's, "The Magic of Christmas Day," thank you Dee Snider for writing such a beautiful song. I love that song (it is just slightly behind the Waitress's Christmas Wrapping, which is my all-time favorite Christmas song, even if only by seniority.) Hearing Celine's voice in my head made my heart a bit lighter and was getting me in the mood for the holiday. I checked the weather and Thursday promised to be warm enough to provide a pleasant day to hang some lights on the house.

It being too late in the night for an all out assault of decking the halls, I decided to hold off on dragging up the ornaments to save that feat for the next day. Not one to waste a moment, I decide to load my iPod with Christmas music. Thanks to numerous hard drive crashes, backups, and reinstalls, I find that I have umpteen copies of the same songs. No biggie, I choose display duplicates and discover over 2700 duplicates. I sit there staring at files and it comes to me. Yes, I do want something for Christmas after all. I want someone else to sit at my computer, go through my entire music library and delete all the duplicates--well, except for Celine and The Waitress's. Those two songs no matter how many dups there are can remain on my hard drive.

What is your favorite Christmas song?

'Tis the Season

My family keeps asking me what I want for Christmas and my answer has been the same--nothing. Seriously, I do not need or want a thing. I have reached a point in my life were simplicity is key. My daughter is relentless and keeps bugging me for a clue. While I was in my neighborhood Barnes & Noble it suddenly came to me as I held open the door for someone who rushed through without so much as a nod.

Yes, I want someone to thank me when I do something nice as holding a door open so you can push in front of every customer in the store to be the first in line at the register. I quite think that we are all pressed for time. If you thank me, I promise to say, "Thank you" to you when you hold the door open for me. If you unable to hold a door open for me, at least do not swing it back because it no longer serves your purpose other than to smack me in the face.

Maybe it is age, or maybe the hectic stressful existence we are forced to live in. I hear many people complain how hard their lives are. Being third in line at a Starbucks does not seem to be a major life interruption to me. I guess I have low standards.

I do not like to write blog rants but the rudeness I have been encountering on my daily jaunts goes against how I was raised. It's a good thing my grandmother is not around to use the web as a sounding board.

I know that one cannot expect people to behave in the manner they want them to, but I refuse to buy into the negative lack of common courtesy. So I will continue to hold open a door and say "you're welcome" hoping you say "thank you." I will not cut in front of you on line to pay for an item, that I probably don't even need, because I do not think I am more important than you.

So what I want for Christmas is for people to be kinder, gentler, understanding, and patient. Trust me--someone has it worse off than you do. This may be a tall order but there is one thing I will accept from my family as a Christmas present; an enjoyable dinner prepared by all, lounging around the dining room table long after we have taken the last bite of food, and the dishes to be washed, dried, and put away because I am too cheap to buy a dishwasher.

Happy Holidays to all!