So it's that wonderful time of year again. Where we turn a new leaf, post up another cat calender and start fresh. Usually I'm all blah about resolutions but let's be honest here - I need them this year. To help me out of this griefy funk and move forward. So Voila 365 things for me to do this year, obviously some of these can not be accomplished in just one day but some can at least add a little more purpose to my year ahead, granted some are small and absurd.
- Plan and take a real vacation as in a different area code, possibly another time zone.
- Learn a new crochet pattern.
- Start a book club
- Write a page a day for my own fiction projects
- Lose 15 pounds
- Start some sort of "healthier" living movement
- Clean out the closet and donate the unfitables to either Sissy or someone else
- Update the wardrobe
- Go to a movie by myself
- Go for walks
- Venture into the city and find one fun thing to do a month
- Go to a concert
- Re-connect with old friends
- Experiment with recipes
- Save a little more than last year
- Drink more water and less diet coke
- Work on painting more
- Stay up past 10 on Friday nights
- Write letters
- Go to a sporting event
- Play in the garden
- Blog a little more
- Update the resume
- Go camping
- Visit a new place
- Start getting rid of the things I don't need
- Make a family scrapbook
- Do something on whim
- Start and finish a home improvement project
- Re-read Jane Austen's books
- Go to the beach ie. conquer the bathing suit fear
- Try new foods
- See a sunset (and in the car doesn't count)
- See a sunrise (and in the car doesn't count)
- Take pictures
- Indulge in new shoes
- Get a pedicure (conquer the other people touching my feet cure)
- Send an unexpected package to someone
- Take some sort of class arts and crafts, cooking, dance
- Go to a cheesy festival
- Learn to drink coffee and not just choke it down.
- Learn which wines I can drink and taste ok without sending me to the hospital.
- Pick apples in an apple orchard
- Get lost in a corn maze
- Go to the Walker for 3 exhibits this year
- Practice sketching people instead of random doodles of lampshades
- Play in the snow
- Learn something about automobile maintenance - maybe how to change a tire...
- Go on a date
- Learn about cheesy landmarks
- Take time to be alone
- Eat fruit
- Shave my legs when they need it, even if I'm feeling lazy.
- Pay off the car so the apartment search can begin
- Have something fun planned for my birthday
- Do something with single friends for Valentines day
- Try green beer for st. Patrick's day
- Finish enough of the novel to search for publishing prospects
- Try to get into yoga again
- Go to the eye doctor since I've been procrastinating on this for 2 years...
- Join a gym and actually go
- Find new music
- Go to a dive bar that quite possibly has country line dancing and suck it up and enjoy it
- Go swimming
- Make an afghan
- Go to the zoo
- Find new coffee places to hang out in after work
- Update my makeup
- Keep up on laundry
- Clean out my trunk
- Call friends
- Update my bedroom from pink and girly to something more grown up
- Read the paper
- Find hole in the wall places to eat, drink and be merry
- Visit grandma
- Plan a picnic
- Go to an artsy fartsy indie film
- Go to a flea market
- Get lost and not freak out
- Help someone
- Look into Grad schools
- Learn a new card game
- Grow cucumbers and make homemade pickles
- Bake more
- Go to the art museum
- Break the addiction to scramble
- Hug more
- Cry when needed
- Laugh more
- Make a Kristen soundtrack to bring me out of a bad mood
- Share a recipe
- Welcome change
- Be brave enough to try new things
- Read a book that is not my typical reading genre
- Offer to babysit my friends kids
- Try my hand at writing a children's book
- Hang my laundry up instead of living out of laundry baskets
- Plan an after work social event for the girls at work
- Try a new pizza topping
- Share my writings with friends
- Be open to criticism
- Make plans for every weekend.
- Try birdwatching
- Start a game night once a month with friends
- Go fishing
- Celebrate all the wacky holidays that don't make it on the traditional calender
- Learn a new word a day
- Get over my fear of mice and bats
- Get over my fear of commitment
- Visit cemeteries where family members are buried
- Try writing a screenplay
- try to make a collection of quick and easy healthy food recipes
- Play the piano once a month
- Encourage my brother to go back to school
- Help my sister find a job
- Floss more
- Make the switch from cookies to rice cakes
- Try listening to a new radio station
- Listen to an audio book
- Make-out like a teenager
- take bubble baths
- go for a bike ride
- buy flowers for myself
- get a carwash - fear of carwashes
- quit procrastinating
- forgive
- continue to grow the hair out - do not give in to cutting temptations
- be happy when i go to work, be happy when i come home
- play matchmaker or attempt to do so
- read some non-fiction
- try sushi
- play a video game and work on hand eye coordination haha
- wear a ridiculous hat or other accessory just for fun
- try crocheting a sweater
- be nice to bible bangers
- get some ridiculously sex underwear
- stop spending weekends in sweatpants
- stop and take time to appreciate small things
- dress up once at least for fun
- re-learn to walk in heels
- get a tan this summer
- spend more time outside
- take my vitamins
- write a poem
- save room for dessert
- rent some old black and white movies
- pack a lunch for work instead of going out to eat
- make waffles - and not Eggo's.
- stop picking at my owwies
- make an effort to look pretty even if i don't feel pretty
- get my pants hemmed to fit properly
- make a family tree
- try a new beer
- try to eat yogurt
- go antiquing
- go people watching
- make new friends
- try recycling
- read my horoscope and laugh
- read a fortune cookie and laugh
- set long term goals
- accomplish short term goals
- go to a comedy club
- go to a planetarium
- make an out of the way trip to have a good story
- make memorable moments with my family
- plan a sister weekend to get out of town with my sister
- plan an all girls weekend to get together with the girls
- send birthday cards
- send christmas cards
- find the birthday gift for everyone
- read Emily Post's book on etiquette
- be more ladylike
- try to obey "the rules"
- go bowling
- try golfing or at least mini golfing
- sing karaoke
- get a ridiculous crush
- send a valentine
- look for cheesy magnets to put on the fridge
- spend quality time with my brother and sister
- work on the family cookbook with my mom
- make a snow man/ angel/ ball
- make a birthday cake for someone at work
- make mini adventures
- try to tiptoe each day
- work on not getting road rage
- build a sandcastle
- write a love letter
- write a i hate your guts letter
- compliment someone
- accept compliments
- donate food to a food shelf
- do a random act of kindness
- dance naked, fear of dancing and fear of nakedness
- sleep naked
- watch a sci fi movie and not complain about it
- stop complaining
- get promoted
- do things out of the ordinary
- be nice to a stranger
- buy stamps in bulk and use them up before they change the postage again.
- keep up to date on news and current events
- sleep in once in awhile
- stay up all night
- learn to make a thanksgiving meal
- learn the best way to remove stains from clothes.
- go to some thing that i don't really want to go to and make the best of it
- fly somewhere
- take the amtrack and not complain about it being delayed. haha
- plant seedlings inside so i can have more flowers for summer
- enjoy nature
- wear sunblock
- paint my toe nails
- create a budget
- ok i'm out of ideas but i might come back to add more...
Oh how I have abandonded you. I'm deeply sorry and now I will fill you random tangents.
Tangent Outline:
Resolutions
Christmas Re-Cap
Book Review: Stupid & Contagious
Online Dating Update
-Kristen
In case you're up all night- calculating I don't know very important things like how much time I've just wasted on www.dreamproductscatalog.com this by far is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen, but hey a multifunctional alarm clock non-the-less. I wonder if you push the numbers for how long you want to snooze?
NEVER MAKE ANOTHER CALCULATION MISTAKE
Error-proof your computations with this amazing talking calculator. The easiest way ever to balance your checkbook, figure taxes or keep at-home accounting on track. Includes a time readout with easyset alarm. Runs on 2 AAA batteries available everywhere.
SO what does a single girl do now that she has replaced all of her fun flirty - "I've got sexy undies on and know one knows but me, tee hee" with boring cute but comfy cotton ones. She relizes that it might be time to slowly integrate cute panties into her underclothes wardrobe once again.
Ok so after looking up my brothers christmas present online I ran across this ---
and to match --- I found this 
Both are still catergortized in the not over my dead body section of underthings.
Alas - time to check out Victoria's secret - see if they have something that more --- I don't know - less scary.
But in the end I know that my cotton bikinis and few remaining sexy girl panties are a step above the "Fashion Panty Wardrobe"
Confession: My sister and I met up with my Grandma friday afternoon. At the end of lunch she loaded my car with christmas presents.
My original thought: Well, this is odd, there are wrapped packages -- normally she only did wrapped packages for my dad and us kids and my mom got random presents in assorted gift bags. Mostly crap - she's old now and doesn't know what us 20 somethings are into and hasn't considered the notion that gift cards and cash are sufficent.
Now I don't mean to sound greedy or anthing like that - but she has enough money where she could be a little better in the gift giving arena. But most of the time she gets us trinkets and a hundred dollars or so in spending money. Anyways -- my point is it really doesn't matter what the gift is - it's the thought put into it.
And frankly - my poor brother was the on the short end of the stick when it came to receiving a thoughtful gift.
Anyways -- so we get and home and open our christmas presents - because we know they will be funny or amusingly tacky and it's really not worth the suspense.
Me and my sister received identical gifts as usual: A box of humingbird stationary, an artifical candel that can not be lit and a operates on batteries and some post it notes with cats on them. and the cash department was lower than standard 100. Oh well. I'm over it. My sister is a little bummed out.
But my brother -- he received a tie organizer. That'll be OH SO useful since he has a total of 2 ties. 1 of which was just aquired this weekend for a wedding, and one is clip on from his first communion back in 1993.
The fun doesn't stop here... He also received a large book about the history of american autos. Now, if my brother cared anything about cars this might be appropriate. But, she tried, maybe, I remember the one year he got penut brittle for a present.
But the kicker is the following: Now, It might be me but the present pictured below just doesn't scream 24 year old grandson does it? I think there might have been some good deals at Mills Fleet Farm or quite possibly Walgreens:
SO LIFE LIKE...YOU'LL THINK HE'S REAL
Watch the smiles as this realistic turtle starts his slow walk, and sings to the music as he goes. Even his head and mouth move as he croons, "You gotta slow down, you move too fast". Takes 3 AA batteries available everywhere.
IF you're interested in this annoying turtle check this out:
http://www.dreamproductscatalog.com/details.cfm?item=11245
photo and details courtesy of the aforementioned website.
Ok so I really don't love Mondays. But once a week or so I try to make it to Perkins for the Soup of the Day. Monday is my favorite Soup of the Day, since it is Chicken Tortilla. I like my Chicken Tortilla soup paired with the oh so sophisticated grilled cheese sandwhich.
Perfect for the chilly day it was today.
Anyways -- I know it doesn't sound very glamourous or special, but it really is a fantastic soup.
Now I'm on the hunt for a recipe to try and make my very own.
PS. The Campbells version of same said soup is not very good, quite bland and lame actually. But I do love Fiesta Nacho Cheese.
Yes, I'm lame and I'm blogging about soup - what can I say, life is exciting.
Soo you want to read a fast paced chick lit book.
Look no further than Sophie Kinsella's Remember Me. It's funny, and delightful and I flipped through it.
The jist without any spoilers:
A 20-something Girl, Lexi Smart has an okay life that ison the verge of going to hell in a handbasket. She get's amnesia and wakes up a totally differnt and changed person.
It's cute and simple and well written.
I highly reconmend it if you are trying to add a book a week to your reading schedule.
Another one to read by her is Undomestic Goddess. Also funny and cute.
I'm a little afraid to start reading her Shopaholic series- I might be forced to pick up something less chick and more lit. But Both of these are excellent fluffy books that make you laugh and sympathize with the charachters.
