Let there be light....

In the darkness our Christmas tree looks like this:

And by daylight it turns into this:

I think I like the dark one better, what does that say about me?

Anyway, we're moving on. I'm working today and in a getting-things-done mode. I'm also working on my annual New Year's resolutions. This is one of those idiosyncracies of mine, something I'm obsessive about. When I was a kid my mother used to sit me down at the kitchen table with orders to construct the list. AND THEN SHE CORRECTED IT, just in case I'd overlooked a few of my flaws.

Through the years I always wrote up my list but I got more and more influenced by the management-by-objective folks. I don't write vague goals like, "Be a better person," no, not me. I write tangible goals, however unattainable. Read 50 books, not just "read more." I know when I've met my commitment and I know when I've come up short.

I don't seem to get too involved in not meeting all my quotas, I just like the security of a list to help point the way in reminding me how I'd like to spend the coming year. Maybe it will turn out to be a wonderful year or even, God forbid, my last year. I know I want to lose weight (like one-third of Americans and 98% of American women), I know I'd like to keep in touch with family and friends a bit better and I know I want to give my brain continuous much-needed workouts. I'll take on the goals of increased creativity, less sitting around in front of CNN, more of this and much more of that, and no more of something else. I always know how I'd like to live a good year.

What's different this year is that I blog. Oh, I do. I blog almost daily and always joyfully. All you unknown folks out there who check in, send e-mails and the occasional comment have become the ones to whom I am accountable. What little exercise I've gotten during December I got because I'd committed to blogging the effort in a sidebar. And now I'm tweaking and refining my resolutions for 2008, something I'll continue to do all week until I've gotten them just right. Then, starting January 1st, I'll refer to them regularly at the end of my posts. You folks will keep me on track and I'm grateful to you for that.