REALITY CHECK

My list of New Year's resolutions nearly revisited

by Coby LaRue

I was looking back for a list of previous year's resolutions for the New Year, but I couldn't find it. It would appear that my earlier resolution to be a more organized individual was a failure. Even so, I always make multiple resolutions so that I might have more shots at hitting at least one target. You can kill more birds with a shotgun than you can with a BB gun.

As I was thinking about my hopes for this year, I realized that I have many things to be thankful for and few things to complain about. The new year can be viewed as a time for positive change, a time for a new beginning. It can also be a time to count our blessings as we approach another calendar year.

I hope to find a home this year somewhere in the county that I can afford. My family needs a house to live in - a place with understanding neighbors, wide open spaces and lots of slow-moving game animals.

I plan to make every effort to sell some of my vast land holdings to raise capital to pay for the house I haven't found yet. My vast holdings are comprised of a six-acre tract and a one-acre lot, both of which I would love to sell and use that money to purchase a nice home. I also need to finish working on my place in the woods before I decide what to do with it. Maybe this will be the year that I give up on my life-long dream of being a slum lord. We'll see.

I would like to read the entire Bible this year, cover to cover, including all those begat things that I never read before. Jewish genealogy is not one of my strong points. Neither is spelling. I just had to look up the word ‘genealogy' to make sure I spelled it correctly. I did not, but it will be fixed by the time you read this. It just goes to show you, a man doesn't have to be all that bright. All he has to do is own a dictionary and a Bible and try to put both to daily use.

I hope to completely finish my long-term task list. For about two years now I have been carrying around a big list of things to do and would like to try and get it completed. Of course, there will be some new things that will need to be put on there and some things that will always need to be done, like maintenance on my vehicles. However, the big jobs that I have started or pondered really should be finished this year. Some of the tasks started so long ago that I may not be able to remember where I was. Some items on the list are so important that they have their own special place on my top 10 things to try and accomplish, such as the following item:

Remove old barn and building at parents' house. The old barn has been nearly eaten alive by termites or some other pesky critters and the building is suffering a similar malady, mostly from years of neglect. My parents have asked me to remove them, so I hope to do that this year and salvage all the materials. Who knows? Maybe I can use the good materials that are left to build myself a new barn and building at the new house I hope to buy. Of course, that would negate being able to finish the list of things to do, as well as the following resolution:

I would like to take more time this year to do nothing. While this has been an offensive pursuit to me in the past, time without a schedule or requirement is often the most quality time we can spend. I would like to include my family in that time, undertaking such tasks as an occasional picnic, drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway, pond fishing outings, camping trips and other such unproductive pursuits. This past year, I took my parents to the beach and we all enjoyed it very much. I hope I can take at least one similar vacation this year. In years past, I have typically used my time off to get caught up on work I have started. This year, I will set out to use only half of my free time for work and the remainder spending time with the people who would most likely cry at my funeral. Sometimes I tend to be spending it with people who probably wouldn't even notice I was gone.

I would like to be healthier in the coming year. For the remainder of the year, I want to focus on drinking more water and cutting out sugary soft drinks and other caffeinated beverages from my diet. I also want to work on increasing my fruit and vegetable consumption. I do not plan to ever give up my meat, but I have cut down on my red meat consumption - I'm down to once a week or less. I also want to take at least one multi-vitamin every day for the entire year and see if I feel better next year. If not, next year I'll resolve to stop taking vitamins.

Along the same lines as the last priority, I would also like to start exercising on some regular basis for my health. I think I get plenty of exercise with all the carpentry work and other things I do, but the winter months can be slow. Rather like a bear, I tend to put on a layer of fat and lay around a lot. Maybe a trip or two to the gym will make me feel more energetic and generally better. If not, I will likely need to resolve to recover from sore and achy muscles or, even worse, try to get over a heart attack from trying to start working out again.

I want to be a more positive person this year. I have found that I generally feel better about things when I focus on things that are blessings in my life instead of gazing into the empty glass.

Since I opened with not being able to find my last resolutions, I will close by resolving to keep a copy of this document in a place where it can be found. If I ever get my office cleaned and organized, the task might be easier. Of course, getting clean and staying clean are different things. It is much the same as making resolutions and keeping them, I'd say.

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