What Will Be Seen In Twenty-Fourteen?

There's nothing like a New Year to make one determined to start 'doing better'. I didn't make any resolutions, but I did make a short list of things I 'plan' to do each day. Just little things like ''clean something". So I started by cleaning my 'office'. It can get so cluttered when I take out boxes of pictures looking for a certain one I want to use in a blog. Also on the list is "shred some documents". I tend to wait for months before I shred and then spend hours doing it. This year I'm going to shred some each day until I get caught up and then shred on a regular basis.

"Scan some pics" is on the list. Our son Mark's Mom died last month. Bud doesn't have a lot of family photos, but what he does have I want to get scanned into the computer. This photo of Bud and Alice was taken at Christmas, 1976, when Mark was two years old. I didn't cut Alice's son Todd in half, that is how the original was taken.
In addition to Bud's pictures, I also have my son Doug's photos from his early years to scan. I borrowed the photo album I had given him years ago and need to get it back to him. There's also all the old family photos Mom and Grandma had. If I just scan a small bunch each day......

Even though I didn't make it a resolution, I want to make an affirmation or statement of gratitude each day as well as a few lines about the day. To that end, I will be using this 2014 Ireland daily calendar. As I tear off each day's page I will jot down something for the day as well as that day's affirmation or gratitude. The one for January 1 was: "I am so very, very grateful I got to achieve my 'lifetime' goal of going to Ireland."

Of course there's 'exercise' on my daily to do list. Thirty-three years ago this month, when I didn't even know who he was, I saw my handsome husband (to be) out running in the frigid January weather. I admired him so much for what I saw as his dedication to a healthy lifestyle.

Now he does most of his running at the Y, but at least once each month he runs outside. Yesterday's temp was in the single digits and the windchill was -15 when he ran more than three miles up around Lake McKinley to welcome the New Year. I still admire (and love) him so much. Today's calendar page reads: "I am so very, very grateful for my wonderful husband, Bud."

So while Bud welcomed the New Year in his way, I welcomed it in mine - with coconut shrimp and champagne. New Year's is one of the three times a year when it is a tradition of mine to have champagne. It will be interesting to see how long I keep up with those things I plan to do each day. My track record for changing for the better has never been too good.

What's to be seen in 2014? A trip to the Gulf Coast next month, a new great-grand-baby in July, a more active year than last was now that I feel recovered from my stroke, lots and lots of good books to read and whatever else comes my way in this first year of my 70th decade. Sláinte!