Resolutions, Schmesolutions.

I love January and it's promise of a fresh start and a new beginning. If Christmas is wonderful because you feel full and lush with love and friends and family and decorations and gifts and surprises, January has it's own charm of being quiet and peaceful and relaxing and contemplative. The older I get, the more I look forward to the January lull.

Of course, January is also a great time to imagine the year ahead and set some goals of what you want to accomplish this year. I have been thinking about this alot lately, mostly because doing laundry, feeding a baby a bottle and emptying the dishwasher don't take a whole lot of strategy space in the ol' brain, leaving lots of room to think about things. So here, in no particular order, are some of the things I'd like to accomplish in the coming year:

1. Lose weight: of course. So does 90% of America. I'd ideally like to get back to where I was after Michaela and before I got preggers with Jenna, which was the same weight I was when I got married. I know exactly what to do, what to eat and how to move to accomplish this, it's just a matter of doing it.
2. Clean out our attic. It's filled with baby clothes, baby gear and equipment, the girls' clothes, papers from grad school, old gift bags, old boxes and other stuff.
2A. Have a garage sale to sell any items worth selling from item #2.
2B. Organize a mom-to-mom sale at my church. My sister in law Beth did this at her church and it was a huge success. Basically moms serve as their own vendors for a huge sale in a hall-type space. The moms can sell anything kid or baby related and they price it and keep the money.
3. Work on prettying up my feet. They are a holy mess and need lots of TLC after carrying around my pregnant body three times for nine months.
4. Buy a new camera. I'm saving up my pennies for this and hopefully will be ready to purchase in the late spring. I'm looking at getting a new digital SLR and couldn't be more excited about that.
5. Make up a spectacular photo book of Alec's baptism. It was such a wonderful day... I want to remember it forever.
6. Start Christmas albums for each of the kids. Each gets their own, with our Christmas letter and picture from each year. Of course I never wrote a letter this year, so I'll have to fudge that a little. If I get really creative, I'll include a few pictures from each year as well.
7. Start school albums for Michaela and Jenna. Again, really basic: just their school picture, class picture and a few candids, if I have any.
8. Organize and purge, room by room. The house needs it. I'd ideally like to spend a week in each room and go through everything.
9. Be the best mom to my three precious babies.
10. Soak up every minute of Alec's first year... which is almost a third over.

Here are some things I'm super looking forward to in 2010: seeing Michaela's teeth grow in and be straight (should be done by December); Alec's first birthday party; Jenna starting kindergarten; my niece Megan being baptized and being her godmother (yay!); my parents' pool opening up in May; hopefully finding our dream house and buying it... or at least having fun looking for it; getting a new roof and windows put into our current house and the incredible sense of satisfaction that will bring.
And of course, accomplishing everything on my resolutions list...a girl can dream, right?