Is this thing on?

In response to the question eveyone asks in January I have resolved to bite off more than I can possibly chew this year. Things are hectic on a daily basis here but rather than trying to further simplify my life I am complicating it exponentially by starting a graduate degree program in a couple of weeks. I have had the benefit of being able to take advantage of free tuition as a job benefit for the last 14 years now so I am really excited that I waited until I was almost 40 with two children in two different school on opposite ends of the city to embark on this journey of self-improvement. This should prove to be interesting.

Our holidays were great. They were, at any rate, much better than Thanksgiving where we all took turns passing around a stomach virus. And, in retrospect, they were better that most of late September and early October where a plague visited our house week after week until finally Tom succumbed to pneumonia. That was awesome. As if sleeping with your bedroom window adjacent to a streetlight doesn't make falling asleep hard enough try sleeping next to someone whose every inhalation sounds like a tea kettle.

There are about a million things I need to do to get ready for the coming semester the least of which is wrapping up some projects that have been languishing in my office since the end of the last semester. My advice to others would be that if a dozen or so people leave your organization in an 18 month time frame it is probably a good idea to go with the flow rather than to keep telling yourself that it will all level out soon enough. It doesn't. Trust me, you're twisted sense of loyalty will not have the positive outcome you hope for.

In all honesty I have not given a lot of thought about resolutions for 2008. I'm going to try to keep it really simple this year in that I want to be better- a better mother to my kids, a better wife to my husband, and a better friend to those who honor me enough to let me count them among my friends. I want to be a better daughter and sister, a better employee, a better boss, a better cook, and a better student. I want to be a better citizen, a better neighbor, and a better gardener. What's so hard about that?