Belated Resolution

My resolution for 2011 is not only belated, but also sort of unoriginal, since I posted about it in November.  But, if you know me you know that I like to keep my resolutions manageable and realistic.  Although sometimes/often even then I don't end up fully accomplishing them.  Ones that come to mind where I had only partial success include: drinking more water, wearing out my yoga mat (took two years instead of one, but I just now realized that I did actually wear it out and had to buy a new one.  GO ME.), and reading all of the unread books on my shelf.  That last one is probably my most impressive failure, because in 2010 I managed to re-read more than 32 books that I own and have read more than once already instead of tackling my stack of unreads.  But, you know, I read mostly for fun, so I don't want to beat myself up about it too much.

On to the unoriginal resolution....

Use stuff up.  That's the umbrella that my resolution for this year is falling under.  And in general, I am trying to develop it into a life habit.  But I don't only want to use stuff up, I want to use the things that I already have as they are meant to be used, and make sure that I stop to consider the necessity of a new item before I purchase it.

So, in light of that goal, I gathered up all of my accumulated post-it notes from my desk at home, chose a few stacks of the ones I liked the best, and brought all the remaining ones to the office to use at my desk.  I am waaaaay more likely to use them here.

Other successes including beginning to use up my collection of cotton balls and qtips, old make up, and hair products.  Also shoes.  But that's a hard one and I am working myself up to that.  Oooh, and food/dry goods.

I have also decided, as an amendment to last year's resolution on books, to seriously evaluate my desire to read the unread books that I have.  If I don't want to read them and have owned them forever, AND don't think that it will be worth it in the end to force myself to do it as an enrichment exercise, then darn well I am going to march them over to the wee book in and exchange them 2 for 1 for books that I WILL read.  I'm thinking The Flying Troutmans, The Book of Negroes, and I'm not sure what else yet.

The additional motivation here is to ease the great merging of belongings that will be happening between Joel and I when we get married.  We have a garage sale in the works for this spring, so I am saving some of my best castoffs in a box in my storage area so that our sale doesn't stink.

So, there you have it.  My resolution.  Maybe next year I will pledge something a little more exciting, but for now I'm good with the practicality of this one.