Okay, so here's the deal. I've always been a pretty good goal setter. So making resolutions should be a breeze. But I've always found that rather intimidating. Goal is a much nicer word and most of them don't take me a year to accomplish. Besides the word goal is shorter to type. Regardless, I am good at setting goals and really not too bad at meeting them. As long as I don't get too carried away.
My kids like to remind and torment me about times that's happened. Like the chore list my daughter found when she was home from New York for a visit. It was in a box of stuff we were sorting that dated back to the 70's. We had a good laugh because the list included an item about sewing her some summer outfits which I never got done and some other items too indelicate to detail that her onery dad had penciled at the end. I don't remember if I accomplished any of those but like to think I had fun trying. That particular list, though, was shorter than others I'd crafted. Some threatened to run longer than my arm but I've mellowed with the years. My enthusiasm has been replaced, somewhat, by practicality.
I still write lists because they help me organize my day and it's safer than relying on my memory. I usually pen a list in the morning while drinking my second cup of coffee when I have energy oozing out of every unclogged pore. By mid afternoon, though, the ooze has dwindled to a trickle and I may have only crossed off a couple of tasks because I've found one item always leads to several others not on the list. Before I know it, most of the day is gone. I do, however, try to accomplish the important stuff like running the dishwasher and paying the electric bill, those have-tos that could result in food poisoning or not being able to turn on the television later.
Nothing can be as bad, though, as the guilt lists I wanted to generate after reading two particular books to the kids when they were small. I'd bought those books at the grocery store- probably on one of those days I was trying to inspire the children to take out the trash or pick up their toys. The books were called: We Help Daddy and We Help Mommy- companion works written, undoubtedly, to extole the virtues of hardworking parents and inspire kiddies everywhere. I always thought those books should have been retitled: Not-So-Great Expectations because reading them was pure misery for a veteran list-maker like me. There, while those Little Golden Book parents were hanging pictures, painting fences, washing cars, folding laundry, planting gardens, fixing faulty electrical appliances,and replumbing bathrooms, I was reading to my kids. Who was I to think dallying away my hours like that or sewing summer play outfits would suffice? God!, what I was thinking, to be so lazy? By the end of one book I would be exhausted but the kids were ready to hop up and play.
I found a copy of We Help Daddy on Ebay a few years ago and bought it for my collection. I shelved it right next to the vintage Superman comic where it may come in handy in my old age if I can't think of anything to do.
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