OFF WITH THE OLD, ON WITH THE NEW

In keeping with the general overall theme established by bloggers, newspaper reporters and columnists, and anyone else who knows how to type, I've decided to blog about the new year. Just so you know, I'm of the school of thought that maintains the decade still has another year to go, that is, 2010 is the last year of the first decade of this century, not the first of the second. I've heard the arguments pro and con and I plan to stick with my first grade teacher who insisted ten comes after nine and eleven is the beginning of the teens which end in twenty. Numbers are grouped by tens and each group begins with one, such as one, eleven, twenty-one, thirty-one, etc.


2009 wasn't a great year for me and mine. Cancer seems to have it in for my tribe and we've done a great deal of shuffling people around, visiting hospitals, praying, crying, and generally fighting to keep loved ones with us. Financially, we're among the survivors so far. Politically the year has been a joke. Dave Barry expressed my sentiments on this score best: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705354621/Dave-Barrys-year-in-review.html


The year hasn't been all bad. My latest book, Shudder, has done very well. I'm serving now at the new Oquirrh Mountain Temple and loving it. My new little peach tree produced forty peaches last summer. And I've put away all of the Christmas decorations for another year.

Now on to the New Year's tradition most of us dread the most---New Year's resolutions. I didn't really make any new ones. The old ones were hardly used at all, so I'm just recycling them. There's all kinds of advice freely available to those who wish to make resolutions. The general idea is to set some self-improvement goal, stick to it for a few weeks, maybe months, then forget it until next New Year's. Don't get me wrong, I'm a firm believer in goal setting; it's something we all ought to do, I just can't see promising to eat less before all the Christmas candy is gone.

The trouble with most resolutions is that they're too abstract. We say "I'm going to lose weight." when we should say, "I'm going to lose a pound a week (month) for a whole year and I'll do this by exercising forty minutes six days a week, drinking eight glasses of water a day, and forgoing any food that remotely tastes good. Just remember a goal that isn't measurable and attached to a plan doesn't count. It doesn't work either.


My hopes for 2010? I've got a lot of hopes: better health for my family, a best seller, calorieless chocolate. My expectations? I'm not overly optimistic where politics or economics are concerned; I expect more of the same. Spiritually? Hey, I work in the temple and I teach six-year-olds in Primary; that's about as close to heaven as one can expect in this life. New Year's wishes? I wish all of you happiness, good health, laughter, the ability to forgive, and the chance to see the world around us through the wonder in a child's eyes.