Happy New Year

Here's hoping that you rang in the new year with love, laughter, and some good company.  We did in my house.  It was good to be back in our neck of the woods after the traditional Christmas in the mountains with my parents.  I may be easy to please (and a cheap date for sure) but we had a ball this holiday weekend.  We played outside all morning with the kids (in t-shirts and jeans!) and enjoyed the unseasonably warm weather.  Then I retreated back to bed and read a deliciously trashy novel for about an hour (on my Kindle!) before making a trip to Walmart (childless!) to pick up groceries for our New Year's Eve dinner.  I was in good spirits! Never mind that I didn't make it into the store before witnessing the first incident of child abuse in the parking lot (it's Walmart, after all).  

Nothing could dampen my mood with a Rachel Ray cookbook in hand.  One of my resolutions is to cook more and better.  After fighting through the unwashed masses, I came home and whipped up her "pasta with a lot of mussel" recipe.  It was outrageously good!  Rule #1 about cooking: You can never have too much white wine in a pasta sauce.  Hubby and I fed the girls early so we could converse like adults during our meal.  We bribed them with Justin Beiber videos to sit quietly and leave us alone (I will not be shamed by this).  We ate our feast and drank $3 champagne (I honestly can't tell the difference).

Then the girls had an hour long bath in our giant bath tub and sadly crept off to bed.  Lilah actually said, "You're breakin' my heart!" when I took her shriveled body out of the tub.  Once they were asleep, Mama and Daddy put on the BIG PEOPLE TV shows!  Like I said, it doesn't take much these days.  Since I loathe the syrupy sweet TV hosts covering the ball drop on the major networks (why are they all tangerine colored?!), we decided to watch a stand up comedy marathon.  First it was a Russell Peters special, then a stand up routine by my new favorite, Patton Oswalt.  My brother recently turned me on to his comedy and any time I don't have kids in the car with me I am laughing my butt off in the car listening to his CD.  His newest set is on Showtime- you can look it up if you have On Demand through Comcast. He is currently in the film, "Young Adult" with Charlize Theron, and used to be a commentator on VH1 before he got fired for being too inappropriate.  

I am thirty three years old and I swear that I have never laughed as hard as I did last night.  I actually had tears streaming down my face for the better part of an hour from my hysterical laughter!  Hubby was laughing too but at me, not the show.   

Disclaimer: It very well could have been the Walmart champagne that made me laugh so hard.  You will have to judge for yourself.  If you check him out on youtube, look up his bit on KFC- one of my favorites. 

Ok, so the fun of ringing in 2012 is over.  Time to get down to business.  Here are the resolutions for moi.  Drum roll...

1.) Cook wonderful tasting food for myself and my family (hence the cookbook).  Pizza may be served ONCE a week.

2.) Actually show up to Jazzercise to work out.  Have been working in the nursery for a free membership (that I have never actually used).  

3.) Wear makeup for occasions other than church on Sundays.  Oh, and remove it at the end of the day, not when I look like a raccoon 24 hours later. 

4.) Actually GO to church.

5.) Read the Bible a bit every day.  It's so easy with a Kindle and I ALWAYS find what I'm looking for in it.

6.) Kiss my husband more.  He's pretty darn good at it!   

I know that some people think that New Year's resolutions are pointless, but I refuse to be that cynical.  I like the idea of trying to be a better version of myself, regardless of the fact that I will surely fail.

Winston Churchill said it best.  "Never, never, never give up."  So I will keep plugging away and I'm hoping to be pretty fabulous by the year 2032.  Happy New Year!