New Year's Resolutions

Southern Man's list goes to eleven...

• Focus on relationships rather than things
• Plan for the future, not dwell on the past
• Leave the stress of work at work
• Learn to enjoy life more
• Lose some weight
• Gain some level of fitness
• Make progress on remodeling the house
• Make progress on various projects at The Land
• Learn something significantly new
• Reduce my debt
• Keep my job (or find a better one)

Fairly conventional, I know; "lose weight", "exercise more", and "get out of debt" make most everyone's list. Last year's resolutions were a bit more specific, and he didn't do as well on those as he wished on those, so those also roll into this year. But whatever your resolutions, good luck to all.

Day Twelve - Another Christmas Is Done

The children have gathered their holiday loot and are back at their moms, leaving Southern Man to finish packing for the move Down South. He is scheduled to be out by the 5th - that's tomorrow - and isn't going to make it, so blogging will be either light or retroactive for a while. Like this one, which is actually being written in early February. But Southern Man suffers sufficiently from OCPD that he simply cannot leave the Twelve Days sequence unfinished, even if the last post is four weeks late.

Day Eleven - Winding Down

Another relatively peaceful day spent cleaning up a bit and watching movies and eating and playing games...Southern Man posted an unwanted sleeper sofa under the "free stuff" category on Craigslist (his first time using the site) and got two calls within five minutes...got a lot of packing done for the upcoming relocation of Casa Southern Man to the south side of town...and that's about it for today.

Day Ten - Movies and Games

After a leisurely morning and early afternoon of errand-running (during which nine-year-old daughter jumped ship to her g'parents for the night) Southern Man and his teens watched movies (Christine and A Wrinkle In Time) and played games (Harry Potter Clue and chess) and then he and teen daughter went to the mall while teen son stayed home to watch football. Daughter got second piercings in her ears, we ate food-court Chinese, and then bought tickets to The Spirit, which turned out to be so dreadful that we both bailed out early and snuck in to other movies - Twilight for her, Quantum of Solace for Southern Man, which was even worse than he remembered. All those quick cuts during the chase scenes just give him a headache. And now Southern Man is eating teen son's left-over cheesy popcorn and blogging and getting ready for bed. Ugh, only a few days till back to work...

Day Nine - New Year's Day!

Happy 2009 to everyone! After a most leisurly and relaxed morning Southern Man gathered the children from their various activities and spent most of the day just hanging out at Casa Southern Man. He groused a bit about how frustrating it is to find anything that all three will eat - they spurned his offer of spaghetti and meat sauce and garlic bread and salad and chose canned soup and nachos and macaroni-and-cheese instead - but if that's what they'd rather have... And then the four of us went to a local bookstore for a "book date" in which Southern Man purchases everyone one book. Teen daughter (who, like Southern Man, is an avid reader) ended up with three (she had a gift card to burn) so she'll be content for the next several hours. And there's three-quarters of the Twelve Days, gone, just like that.