New Years Resolutions Can Suck It

I hate New Years Resolutions. They seem like a silly way to set yourself up for failure. When next New Year’s comes rolling along you get to remember how excited you were a year ago to learn to knit or jog everyday and then realize you never did it. Then in order to prove that you’ve grown and changed, you do it again. It’s a vicious cycle. Just face it - some people will never jog. I prefer giving every year a theme. Some simple thought or phrase that I can put behind an entire year of actions.

2010 was the “Wrap Shit Up!” year for me. I opened my eyes 1/1/10 and realized that I was more than a year divorced, but still dealing with his things and the devastation from the process. I was living in a construction zone of a ‘fixer upper’ and was desperate to walk into my bedroom and not find a hammer somewhere in the pile of shoes. As I continued to look around my life I saw dozens of unfinished projects and processing and needed to... you got it… “Wrap Shit Up!” (The exclamation is very important. Without it, how would I remember I was excited about it?)

I think I did okay. It’s not all wrapped up, but I made huge strides! I wrapped up almost all of the interior renovations, leaving just a few odds and ends like “Touch up paint” on the list. The divorce thing is taking some extra time due to a terrible and boring list of legal reasons I’m still dealing with, but I did finally hire a lawyer to finish it up for me! And best of all, the tools are now in a place in the basement just for tools!!

A few weeks ago I opened my eyes to 2011 and I took another look around my life. I felt really good about wrapping things up last year. I was proud of the changes I made instead of disappointed that I failed to meet a resolution. But I knew that I still needed something… 2011 is time for RockStarCrafter to “Catch Up!!” (TWO exclamations. Yes, that’s how excited I need to be about this year!)

“Catch Up!!” means a lot of things to me. I am trying to find the areas of my life where I was less than vigilant over the past few years and make up for lost time. For your reference, please find a sampling of those areas:

• ·      Personal Health and Fitness
• ·      Finance
• ·      Community Outreach
• ·      Social Activity
• ·      Creative Expression
• ·      Car Cleanliness
• ·      Lipstick 

Like I said, it's just a sampling.

So, in an attempt to work on the health and finance areas, I decided to start hauling my breakfast and lunch from home to my 9 – 5. At first I was pretty bummed about it. Last night’s leftovers and a romance novel during my lunch hour were far less appealing than cracking jokes over $5 milkshakes with the guys from the office. But I was excited about “Catch Up!” so I did it anyway.

Then, my dear friends, a miracle happened! No, you’re right. It was more like an awesome coincidence. I found Lunch It, Punch It – a website that offers an amazing revolution in the ‘bringing your lunch to work to save money’ syndrome:

A punch card!!

If you bring your lunch 10 work-days in a row, you get to treat yourself to an awesome lunch out. I thought this might work since I am the type who will continue to get bad coffee from that place around the corner just because I am three cups away from a free bad cup of coffee. So I printed up their punch cards and started punching!

Today, dear readers, was my first full punch card lunch and it was amazing! Because I hadn’t been spending all my pennies on not-so-great lunches everyday, I got to splurge on my favorite lunch from the local organic pizzeria, The Oven. It was magically delicious.

A salad, personal pizza of your choice and a beverage for just $11.95!! 

Another wonderful side effect is that I no longer dread packing my lunch every morning. I’ve been planning for it, both in time and food. And even better? I think I need to make my own reusable lunch bag! Anyone know of any patterns I can use?