Well, the holidays are over and so is the vacation. It is time to face the new year with all its incumbent responsibilities and possibilities. So, for the first time in my twenty-seven years, I'm going to make, and record for history, some New Year's resolutions.

Read More, Read Better - I used to be a voracious reader, and I still love books and reading, but the television has started to encroach on my reading time. Also, I need to start reading more enlightening and spiritually nourishing literature. For example, I have been meaning to read Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmadge for about 10 years now, I just haven't done so.

Get into Shape - Again, something that has been on my To Do list for the last decade. Now that I live in a building with a fitness room, I have no excuse. Plus, with the colds I got over Thanksgiving and Christmas, I don't even have to worry about holiday weight gain. I'm starting out ahead of the game.

Pay Down My Debt - Since my debt is a car loan, there is no way I could pay it off this year unless I got an astronomical raise. However, I can afford to up my payments by 50%, which would save me about a year in payments, if I'm doing my math right.

Get Financially Savvy - I have a 401k but I have no idea what it does or how it works or even what my money is doing. I really need to find out. For Christmas I got a subscription to a financial planning newsletter (Thanks Dad!) so I just need to buckle down and study. And get a dictionary, because some of that fine print stuff confuses me.

Find My Bliss - Yeah, this is kind of esoteric, but I really need to find my passion in life. And find a way to make a career out of it. I know I won't be happy making a career of being an Executive Administrative Assistant.

Meet New People - I have great friends, people who have known me for decades, so I'm pretty content and complacent when it comes to friendship. And I've been lucky in my complacency as most of my dear friends live within an hour or less drive, but I won't always be this lucky and even if I am, I need to start broadening my horizons.

Learn Something New - There are so many community education classes offered in my city, it is ridiculous for me not to try some, be it gourmet cooking or web site design or even brushing up my Spanish or Italian skills just in case the secret trust fund does kick in and I can afford to travel Europe.

Write - Creating this blog has reminded me how much I enjoy the written word, especially when it is my written word. Also, I need to start keeping a journal. My previous attempts have ended because I either bored myself with meaningless entries about my daily doings or depressed myself with endless laundry lists of my perceived grievances with my life or the world in general. What I really need is a tiny corner where I can express my deepest thoughts and desires, with much less formality and no worry about the audience of this blog.

Simplify - I have a bad habit of holding on to things, of what-ifing my way into overcrowded closets and drawers, of making everything complicated. I really need to remember I don't need to keep greeting cards for fear of offending those who sent them, or to hold on to things I don't like, don't need, don't want.

Worry Less - I am a great Worst-Case Scenarist. I can think of fifty ways any given activity, event, or situation can go wrong. The fact I don't have an ulcer amazes me. The stress of doing the unknown is overwhelming for me because of all the ways I come up with for it to go wrong. But things rarely go so wrong. And if they do, it is never one of the fifty ways I imagined. So I need to let go and have a little more fun, because, as E.M. Forster wrote in A Room with a View, one can't rehearse life.