Keeping it real for 2009

It’s been a day or two since you resolved to lose weight, work smarter and get more exercise.

Tell the truth, has your treadmill already returned to its pre-resolution function as a clothes rack?

My own percentage in keeping these yearly promises to myself resembles the Bush administration’s approval rating. Therefore, I hereby resolve to cross off my list every New Year’s resolution that I have failed to fulfill in the past. 

That’s right. If I have tried and failed at something, it’s not going on my 2009 list. Why stacks the odds against myself? The key to a happy life is realistic expectations, especially of oneself. 

Just like the U.S. education system, I’ve decided to dumb down my requirements so as to not adversely affect my own self-esteem. 

Here’s my “I can do this!” list for 2009:

1. I will take a shower every day even if I’m not planning to leave the house. If I take more than one shower a day in the summer, I won’t try to bank the extras and claim the credit in the winter when the bathroom is 46 degrees.
2. I will brush Mr. Bobo the Wonder Cat three times a week. I should do it every day, but I know I won’t and I don’t want to set myself up for failure. The payoff: there should be fifty percent fewer upchucked hairballs in 2009.
3. I will clean out my e-mail box every day. OK, twice a week. Um, how about I’ll keep the mailbox to under 200 messages? Yeah, that feels right.
4. I will transfer the laundry from the washer to the dryer within 48 hours of the end of the spin cycle. 
5. Speaking of laundry, I will stop being mean to Keeper when he asks me if he has any clean underwear before he checks the dryer. Come on! Does he think I have a secret hiding place for his tighty whities? Oops, that just slipped out.
6. I will stop wasting my creativity by trying to think up different answers to the inevitable checkout line question, “Did you find everything you need?” I will limit myself to a yes, a yeah or a yep. They don’t want to hear me chirp, “I found things I didn’t know I needed!” 
7. I resolve to stop using my car as a storage unit. This does not mean, however, that I will clean the garage to make room for the extra stuff I haul around. That’s not realistic. How about I just resolve to not put anything ELSE in my backseat? Yeah, that feels about right.
8. I resolve to never again put potato peelings down the garbage disposal. Enough said.
9. I will try to curb my natural tendency toward obsession. I mean, who downloads the previous seasons of “30 Rock” and watches 35 episodes in a row? By the hammer of Thor!
10.  Lastly, I will lose 25 pounds. Hey, everybody needs an impossible dream.