Resolutions

I've never really been big on New Year's Eve plans, but one of my favorite parts of the change of the year happens on New Year's Day. Each year, after Christmas, we buy a new calendar for the year - the house calendar. This is where we put family and friend birthdays, anniversaries, planned visits, car maintenance, dentist and doctor appointments, days off from work, paydays, vacations - anything that's really relevant to Tara's and my schedule. I love picking out a new calendar, flipping though it to check out the pictures, and going through page by page against the old calendar and thinking about each thing that's written in the old calendar before transferring the birthday or event over to the new calendar.

Last year, we had the New York Audubon society calendar, and each month we turned to a new Audubon illustration that reminded me more of my grandmother than the last month's illustration, and one in particular was my favorite:


This year, we got the National Geographic American Landscapes 2008 calendar, and on New Year's Day I went through 2007 before putting it in the recycling. It was fun to think about everything we did last year, Tara's graduation, Bermuda, and all the other things we were lucky enough to do. When I got to October my heart dropped. Now, I'm not a big believer in New Year's resolutions, but when I saw this I vowed never to have another October like this, the busiest month of my life/our lives/Tara's life:



Though this year promises to be busy with other things, including another busy travel season for Tara in the Fall, I will not be in school. This will make a huge difference and allow me to better take care of the house while Tara is away. This year it was absolutely too much for me to do work, school, and all the homemaking. I'm looking forward to one of those significant obligations to be done soon. In May. On the 23rd. Not that I'm counting.

Oh, and now a random picture of C. Bob we took that I think is funny. Here's the back story: we bought a new pet carrier for the cats and there were labels inside in case you used the pet carrier on the plane. We made some additions that seemed more appropriate for our animals than the original version of the sticker: