It takes the earth 365 days to make it around the sun, and during that journey there are three times when invariably I try to reinvent myself: the start of the New Year, the season of Lent, and back to school time. It's not that I don't like myself, but rather, I am acutely aware of some areas that could use, ahem, improvement. I don't approach my attempts at betterment with any stress or anxiety. The opposite is true. I love them. I relish them. They energize and invigorate me.

I know, I'm weird. 

Here's a run-down of how the end of the year and the beginning of the next always shape up for me. Christmas comes and goes. I go shopping to buy a bunch of stuff that I don't need for 70-90% off. I feel good about the bargains, and then feel a primal urge to clean and organize so that I can find places for the new Christmas gifts and after-Christmas impulse buys. I resolve to be more organized in the new year. 

I read all the things that have titles like Top 10 Funny Cat Jokes of 2015 solely because they include the words "top" and "of 2015." I listen to any kind of countdown that I hear on the radio (although, I listen to the radio a lot less these days, and sadly my Hipster Cocktail Party station on Pandora doesn't indulge my love of countdowns). And back when I used to keep a diary, every year I wrote an entry with all of my personal highlights (and lowlights) by month. I fondly think back to that simpler time every late-December, lament that I don't keep a journal anymore, and resolve to to start doing that again.

On New Year's Eve, I over-indulge. New Year's Eve is like the cherry on top of a month of everything too much. With each bite and sip I tell myself, "Enjoy - in the new year, you're not eating stuff with gluten in it! No more chocolate for you! No more fried foods!" (Of course that usually doesn't last much longer than the hangover.) Thank goodness there's Lent so that I can pick up the pieces (and I don't mean Reese's). 

Then on the morning of New Year's Day, I drive everyone in my household crazy by narrating the entire day. When I get dressed, I say: "That's the first time I've gotten dressed in the new year!" When I watch the Rose Bowl Parade on TV, I exclaim: "The first parade of the new year!" When Mike rolls his eyes and says "Enough!" I respond with, "First time I've annoyed Mike in the new year!" (Seriously, try it. It's a lot of fun.)

Why do I love the new year so much? I think there's something to be said about wanting to be better. First, resolutions usually require a person consciously to desire to step out of the status quo and onto a different path. Resolutions admonish inertia and reward personal growth. Second, in order to recognize how we can improve, we must be self-reflexive. Making new year's resolutions is an opportunity to reassess our goals and priorities, and to figure out whether we've gotten off track. Third, the belief (even if naive) that we can improve ourselves means that we acknowledge our personal power. We are the ones who can make a difference in our lives - we're able to do that. Even if we're only able to make positive changes for a month, or week, or even less, at least we did a little bit of good for ourselves. And if we did it once, surely we can do it again. 

Of course, some people think that folks who make resolutions are just setting themselves up for failure. Others eschew resolutions because they think that if something is a good idea on January 1st then it's also a good idea on any random Tuesday. They don't understand why people wait until the new year to try out personal improvement strategies.

I say that the key to a good new year's resolution is to reframe what success looks like. Resolutions are often big things - lose weight, stop smoking, stop eating sugar, get a new job. It's really hard to achieve big things, but it's not all that hard to do little things that are steps in the right direction. If you want to lose 100 pounds, it's going to be a long time before you get there. But you might lose 2 pounds by next week, and that is a reason to celebrate. You probably won't have a new job by the end of January, but the fact that you applied for 5 positions is a reason to pat yourself on the back. Celebrate the increments, and you're much more likely to get to the finish line.

And yeah -  good ideas for ourselves are good ideas, no matter the date on the calendar. The thing about new year's resolutions, though, is that there's awesome momentum. There's not a sense that we're trying to do this all alone. Me and about 65 million friends are all trying to lose weight. It's just a fact that all of my coworkers aren't likely to start brown-bagging their lunches on the third Thursday in March. But they might all start doing it during the first week of January, and that might make it easier for me to do it too. 

My personal resolutions aren't all that exciting.  I want to lose weight and be healthier (and I plan to do it by trying to eat foods that are anti-inflammatory). I want to be more organized (and use my Sortly app to inventory the contents of my household).  I want to spend more time on creative endeavors. I want to spend more quality time with my family. I want to live in a cleaner house. I want to garden more. There's no measure of "success" for any of my resolutions. I just don't want binge watching shows on Netflix to be my focus in 2016. As time goes on, maybe I'll find myself eating more vitamins and  gazing upon blooming flower vistas from inside my not-so-filthy house. Those simple things would be a win, y'all. 

Wherever you fall on the resolution spectrum, from the resolvers to the naysayers, I hope that you have a wonderful New Year full of personal growth and a whole heckuva lotta good things. And have no fear if you're back to your degenerate ways by MLK Day. Good things love second chances. 

Do you remember the days when ridiculously long quizzes made rounds on Facebook, and we got to find out whether or not people like mayonnaise and where they had their first kiss? I liked reading those. I felt like I knew you a little bit better. I could imagine you procrastinating from some unpleasant task while you thoughtfully wrote answers about yourself at first, and then halfway through you were all like whoa. how long IS this thing?​ I enjoyed reading your answers because we all yearn to feel connected and as if our friendships are genuine. Surely sharing trivial minutiae is the same thing as true friendship, right? 

I'm lucky to know many people whom I consider to be friends, but I'm far from feeling as if most of my friends are my close friends (no offense to those of you in the friends rank... please keep reading!). I just don't have a lot of time for "hanging out," and doing the kind of mindless activities that lead to meaningful bonding. I know you don't have that kind of time either. Most of my friends are truly lovely folks whom I see too rarely, and with whom I often have brief and superficial conversations. How's everyone at your house? Good? What are the kids up to? How's work? I hate that, and I would love to conjure up some tried and true BFFs, but it's hard to find the time to achieve the "closeness" deserving of half of a Best Friends necklace from Claire's.

I guess I could switch around my priorities and give up committees, community service, family dinners, and youth sports. Then we could hang and chat on your couch while we watch TRL on MTV. But it's not gonna happen, and not just because MTV dropped "Music" from their name. It's an unlikely proposition because adulting is hard, and I haven't figured out how to put all the pieces together yet. 

A lot of ink has been spilled on the topic of why it's hard to make friends as an adult. As we get a decade or more into our 501(K) (or lack thereof), we may unintentionally give up the idea of true soulmate friends, and settle instead on situational friends. It's an economistic model where friends fulfill specific needs - the drinks after work friend, the networking friend, the kids' birthday party friend, the church friend, etc. We enjoy spending time with them until life gets busy, and trying to schedule friendship into our lives means that we hit a point of friendship diminishing returns. Then we just shrug our shoulders and start skipping happy hour before the PTA meeting because finding time to hang out is too much of a hassle. No one cares about our vanishing act because we're all just kind-of-friends anyway. They are kind to post "Missed you at drinks!" on our Facebook walls, and everyone gets the warm fuzzies of affectionate acquaintanceship. 

I'm living that model, and it makes me kind of sad. Sociologists since the 1950s have said there are three factors crucial for making close friends: proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and letting our guard down to confide in each other. There's not much I can do about the first two factors in this phase of my life - I'm scattered about in too many different directions. But I kind of think of my writing as an exercise in the third factor. As you read, I tell you things about me. I share and may sometimes even overshare. I give you sneak peeks into who I think I really am.  And here's what I hope... I hope the next time we find ourselves unexpectedly in the same room, perhaps your newfound knowledge of me can help us move past the superficialities and start building deeper bonds. I would really like that. I think you could be a really great close friend. Until then, I'm a definite maybe on drinks on the 3rd Thursday of November, and I'm grateful that you'll keep on inviting me even if I bail. 

As a Virgo, I should be organized. Home organization should be my predestined astrological zen. 

But it's not. I'm a failed Virgo. I love to think about organization, but I'm not so good at the follow-through. It seems virtually impossible for me to finish an organization project at home. I get really really really close, and then I lose interest. Need proof? Come on over and check out my halfway organized gift wrap. My kinda-sorta organized craft supplies. My loosely arranged pantry. My mostly empty shoe organization boxes. The list could go on and on. 

Even with all my failures, however, I still spend a lot of time thinking about organization systems. You could even describe me as a weirdo who has thinking about organization as a hobby. I could put a bookshelf over there. Some cubbies would be awesome here. What I really need is a binder to corral all of this stuff (self-disclosure... I may or may not have a binder problem). That's what goes on in my head when I have downtime alone. Riveting, I know. 

I allow myself to traipse along those mental passages for a while, and then I tend to go to the other extreme: screw it - get rid of everything! The mood switch usually happens because organizing is messy business. You have to drag everything out before you can put it all away. And in the midst of the dragging everything out, this is what happens to me: 

Back-to-school time always felt like the real "new year" for me. I started planning my triumphant return to school weeks out from school orientation night. I agonized about the right outfit to wear on the first day. I plotted about how I was going to be "different" than I was the last school year, just a mere few months prior. I truly believed in the metamorphosis power of back-to-school. It's funny how I never really changed in the ways I secretly imagined, however. I never became the most popular kid in school. I never got to tour with New Kids on the Block and be Joey McIntyre's girlfriend. (I never said my secret imaginings were remotely realistic.) But other good things happened - things that I couldn't have foreseen, and that I wouldn't have changed in retrospect.

Now I'm a grown woman, and I realize that it's not that easy to reinvent myself in the span of 2-3 months. Even though there are things that I sorely wish I could change, I now know that radical metamorphosis requires time, resources, determination, and motivation. Truth be told, I'm severely lacking in all those departments. I think that's okay. It's fine to be who I am, right here and right now. 

I'm not going back to any school this year, but September still marks the beginning of my busy season. There are holidays to plan for, plus Cafe Davis - our 12-day crazy pants dinner party. There's college football season, and harvest festivals and pumpkin patches. Enjoying each one of those things is going to change me. I'll spark new friendships and deepen existing ones. I'll create lasting memories. I'll do good things for other people, and gratefully accept kindnesses directed toward me. I'll have struggles, and I'll appreciate those who pause to help me. I'll see dreams ignite, and others fade away. 

I certainly won't be the same person this time next year that I am today. No one ever is. Change tends to be quotidian; it manifests in the day-to-day. It comes gradually, not radically. If we keep trying to put our best foot forward, however, hopefully the changes that come will be more good than bad. It's taken me a long time to realize this good lesson: Be at ease with who you are because you'll never be the same.

I've been struggling to write this week, but not because I have nothing to say. There are thoughts in there, trying to get out, but I can't figure out how to say them without sounding like I'm whining. I tell my kiddo all the time, "I don't speak whine." Oh well, hypocrisy FTW. 

Here's my issue. I'm 38 years old, soon to be 39. I'm not doing what I wanted to be do doing at this age ... in theory. I say "in theory" because I'm not sure I've ever known what I wanted to do. I can look back and identify things that I think were mistakes (like getting a Ph.D.), but my crystal clear hindsight doesn't get me anywhere. I just feel like I've always been adrift. 

I look at people who seem to be truly engaged in every moment of their life, and I admire and envy them. It doesn't matter what they're doing - teaching, running a start-up, throwing pottery, slamming back courtroom wins, dominating Donkey Kong tournaments, whatever. If it seems like folks have an interest that they are passionate about, that they devote time and resources to, and that brings them a sense of fulfillment, then they show up on my radar and I start feeling irritated. 

I know my feelings are ridiculous because what I'm seeing on Facebook or perceiving from Instagram isn't real life. It's curated life. (#greeneyedmonster)  

The notion of terminal fulfillment is false. Thinking otherwise isn't healthy. 

I (or we, if you find yourself in this same boat) need to acknowledge that not everyone has it all together. Not everyone has the job they want, the relationship they want, the family they want, the house they want, the bank account balance they want, the flexibility they want, the body they want. Every. single. person. wishes there was something different about their lives. 

Me and grumpy cat... we're not alone in our hrrmph attitudes.

This isn't an argument for fatalism with friends. I'm not resigned to prolong the fact that I feel adrift on memory bliss. I don't have to let other people direct my life. (To further quote P.M. Dawn, "marionette strings are dangerous things.") I can change my course. I can find a passion and set my mind to it. But that doesn't mean that I'll never feel listless, trapped, bored, disappointed, or melancholy again. I'll still wonder how things would be different if the universe granted do-overs.

I also think it's a good thing to be honest about such feelings. Misery loves company because misery is honest. We're doing ourselves a disservice when we bottle all of this crap up and don't share it with anyone. I find that when I'm feeling particularly underwhelmed, it actually hurts my ability to talk to other people. They ask, "How's XYZ going?" The truth is that it kinda sucks right now, and I'm feeling over it. But I answer, "Fine. You know, going okay." And as I say that, I realize that I'm not making eye contact. I'm fidgeting. I'm slumping. I want to exit the conversation, or quickly change the subject. But when I answer the question truthfully, I feel relieved. I feel stress roll away. I actually feel a sense of connection with the other person. 

Of course this is also not a recruitment message for the Debbie Downer Brigade. It's merely an observation about what it's like to live as a thirty-almost-forty something these days. Fulfillment is illusory, and shouldn't be the goal. When Facebook shows us pictures of perfect families, perfect jobs, perfect houses, perfect vacations, perfect lives, remember that perfect is not the right yardstick. I want to look you directly in the eye and tell you the truth - some (not all) things kinda (not always) suck right now, and I'm feeling over some (not all) of it. I bet you feel the same way too. Let's talk.

Question #8: Do you serve money or does money serve you?

I loved the movie Pitch Perfect, and the mashup that the Bellas sing at the end. Until that movie, I wasn't familiar with Jessie J.'s song "Price Tag." Now it's one that our family frequently sings on repeat on long car trips. Maybe it's not okay for our 4-year-old to sing about "video hoes," but I'm willing to risk a conversation about that for the larger message that being obsessed with money is not a good idea.

That said, even though we collectively belt "I just wanna make the world dance, forget about the price tag," at the top of our lungs, I think my family still serves money and not the other way around. Another anecdote: Mike and I talk all the time about what we'll do when we win the lottery. We already know what piece of property we'll buy, and how we will spend our new-found leisure time. Mike wants to plant orchards. I want to run a little store. Mike is the lottery ticket buyer in our house. If the jackpot gets past a certain threshold, he'll buy a few tickets, and we'll all cross our fingers. Not long ago, he brought home a few scratch-offs, and let Emme scratch off one of them. She asked how she would know if she won, and I explained that she had to match the winning number, 7. She scratched off all of the boxes, and then started comparing, one by one. Then she saw it. Another 7. She started jumping up and down screaming "WE WON THE LOTTERY!" I looked down to see what the prize was, and saw that she won $1. And then I had to explain to her that $1 is not enough to realize our lottery dreams.

Emme wasn't excited about winning the lottery because she wants to buy a mansion and tricked-out cars. She was excited about winning because it meant unlimited leisure time with her parents. When I say I serve money, I serve it in much the same way she interpreted her lottery winnings. There's not much I want to buy. I'm not one of these people who wants designer clothes (wouldn't fit me right anyway), fancy cars, and a 10,000 square foot house (or the pressure to fill it up). And so while I don't think Biggie's declaration of "more money, more problems" applies to me, my obsession with money relates to the fact that I don't have enough of it to be able to spend my time the way I want to. Maybe a better adage for me is "time is money," and I don't seem to have enough moolah to buy the kind of time I want.

So how do I get from serving money to money serving me? I'm working on it. It's something that I struggle with daily. How to feel content. How to maximize the leisure time I do have so that I don't resent other obligations. How to find what I'm really meant to do. How to not feel bad about the money I have when others have to make do with less. How to not feel resentful about the money I don't have when others have so much more. It's tough work, friends, and I know that I'm not alone in this. If you have tips on how to reframe money in way that feels healthier and more balanced to you, I'd love to hear your thoughts. 

[Just a reminder - the 101 questions I'm working through come from a website called Pick Your Brain.]

I think I've always had a little bit of hoarder inside me. It took me a long time to overcome my compulsion to stockpile paper - I kept high school and college notebooks, middle school notes from friends signed with LYLAS and outlined with doodles, song lyrics that seemed profound at some point in time, and much more. Even though looking at those things could sometimes summon a memory worth remembering, as time passed that happened less and less. So I decided hanging on didn't always make sense, and the great purge began.

I don't really remember the exact time that the tide turned toward dumping excess, but it did. I flat out had TOO MUCH STUFF, and I let it overrun me. Case in point... here's a gem from times past on this #tbt:

I know I've come a long way, but there are still things that I cling to because they aren't past their useful life or I'm too sentimental to part with them. Just looking at this picture, I see some items I still own 16 years later. The Coca-Cola thermometer hangs in my kitchen. Most of the Beanie Babies on the desk are in a pile of greatly treasured loveys in Emme's room. But at least those things are being used. They aren't just being kept for the sake of keeping, which brings me to the point of my post. 

I'm giving myself a challenge - to use what I've got. 

I'm going to use the stuff I have, or get rid of it. Even if that means powering through my collection of a million pencils (seriously - where do they all come from?) to write an opus, or adorn them with washi paper and give them as gifts to every person I know. I'm gonna be committed y'all. I'm going to get through it all, and be conscious before I add anything more. I know this process will take time, so I won't plan to do it overnight or anything. But I will share the outcomes with you here. 

To be honest, I just looked at the picture and didn't read her step-by-step tutorial. Figuring out how to do this is pretty intuitive. 

1. I laid out the doilies first. Since mine aren't all white, I tried to balance the shapes and the colors. I put the biggest doily in the middle and worked my way out.
2. I got thread and sewed the doilies together using a few simple loop stitches. This won't be the easiest thing to get apart someday if I have a different use for the doilies, but with a seam ripper it surely won't be impossible.

That's it. I like how the shapes suddenly seem much more modern and less precious when made into a runner. And now I have something that I've been hoarding with no practical purpose that I will actually use. Living forward by looking backwards. Good stuff. 

I stole this idea from probably more than one person. Then I mashed the ideas together, printed the final product, and stuck it in a frame to make the ideas dry-erasable. I can't give credit where credit is due (my apologies) because I can't remember the original sources. But someone out there had the game board-inspired cleaning routine idea. Someone else had the vacuum-a-room-a-day idea. And someone else figured out that a simple picture frame = dry erase board. All of you are genius. 

I have high hopes for this cleaning routine, even if I don't get everything accomplished every single day. I think it will work because the very premise of a routine is that I'm doing something each day, which is a lot more than the many, many days where I did nothing. Even the kiddo likes the routine's dry-erasability. She has taken vacuuming on as her daily contribution (sometimes... when she feels like it, and the My Little Ponies or Elsa aren't too distracting). Props for preschool approval.

I figured it would be helpful to share my printable in a Word document so that you can edit at will. I tried to vary activities in the game board squares so that high traffic areas get attention more often. You may find that works for you, maybe not. Whatever floats your boat, or cleans your kitchen sink, is cool with me. Happy cleaning! I'd love your comments - do you think this (or some variation) will work for you?

I had a super busy weekend. Busy busy bee, that's me. I started lots of things, which as you can see from my bio is kinda my M.O. Why can't I ever do ONE thing, from start to finish? I shake my head at myself. Alas, these projects will all be finished in time, and then I will feature them all as their own independent projects here. Until then, sneak peek time, from L to R, clockwise.

1. I am violating one of the cardinal rules of before and after pics here. #1 and #2 are not from the same angle, so you can't really get a sense of what I actually did. To quote Inigo Montoya, "Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up." My "home office" was previously a closet under the stairs in its previous life. It's a cozy little spot to sit and work a while, and it is usually a big ol' mess, as seen here. That's all you really need to know. Moving on.
2. I decided to try and corral two problem areas. First - little stuff: envelopes, the bazillion pencils I've apparently accumulated, stationery, and disposable tape dispensers, to name a few. Second, wrapping paper. This picture shows my solution. The area pictured is the wall to the right in pic #1 above. The wall stretches above the desktop about 3 feet, and then there is a slanted ceiling (underside of the stairs). I bought 8 little baskets at the Dollar Tree for $1 apiece, and a cup hook kit ($2) and two 36" long bungee cords ($1.89 ea.) at Ollie's. Now, there is plenty of little stuff storage, and wrapping paper storage to boot. Of course, the mess isn't gone yet, but progress has been made. Win.
3. I worked more in my bathroom. This project was started in August. Shameful. The beadboard is up. It's all painted. It looks awesome. I hung up the beeee-youuuuu-tee-full curtains. But... there are two walls that need a second coat of paint, and I can't find the paint roller handle. I saw it a few days ago, I swear. Grrr. So that didn't get done. But I did fix the wobbly toilet seat cover. There's something to be said for that. 
4. I took a break and painted these two cute pictures for the kiddo's bathroom. I used some stencils that I bought in the clearance aisle at Michael's a while back, and some acrylic paint I had on hand. I outlined the paint with a black Sharpie to help the text stand out. It's not fine art, but it's cute, and the smile on her face when she saw them was priceless. She repeated both of the sayings as she started to drift off to sleep. 
5. We have a freestanding cabinet/armoire dealy-o in our bathroom to hold all of our toiletries. I bought these mini-crates at Dollar Tree in 2006, and they have faithfully held all of our stuff for a long time. Sorta. Because they are crates, things fall out of the holes. Messes pile on top of messes, and in short time the cabinet is in disarray. 
6. Meet the solution: The kiddo and I had craft time last night. I cut cardstock-weight scrapbook paper to the appropriate sizes, punched holes, and threaded the corners with jute twine. The scrapbook paper was something I had on hand, and if you look inside the crates you will see whimsical vintage Halloween designs. No bother. I've had the paper for at least 3 years, and there's no sense in continuing to hoard it. Put it to use! Plus, the visual clutter of the cabinet has been greatly reduced. So why is this on the unfinished projects list? It's because I ran out of paper. I think that I have some that's the same color/type but with a different pattern in the messy office (see #1 above). Once I unearth that, we'll be rocking and rolling again. 

I am definitely further on my #goodliving journey. What a good weekend.