Mine go like this: 1) Decrease shopping at Target, and when I have to go, only go to the diapers, formula, milk aisles 2) Save more money, and stop wasting it on frivolous stuff. My goal for the year is to triple my savings account. 3) Lose weight- I know it is cliche to say this at New Years, but I've got to get rid of the baby weight from baby #2, I was half way there when I found out I was pregnant with baby #3, and now he's 6 months old, I need to stop making excuses because this is not a healthy weight for me and I feel it. 4) Be more patient with my children. I love them to pieces, but sometimes I lose my patience after hearing mommy, mommy! for the 9,000th time in a day 5) Go to Italy to visit our extended family. DH's Nonna will not be on this earth much longer, and we want her to meet her great grandson. This resolution also includes, conquer my fear of flying and dying in a plane crash. 6) And my final, is to have more sex. I read somewhere last year about a bunch of people that committed to doing it every day and it did wonders for them, An added benefit is it will burn more calories, and it keeps DH happier, and keeps us closer. I am not telling him this, I'm just gong to do it. Sorry it's so long, I've probably bored all of you.

After discovering FlyLady, I was going like gangbusters, decluttering and organizing the house. Then I took a little diversion to have treatment for breast cancer. Now that the radiation fatigue is starting to fade, I have more energy. And we're leaving on vacation in a week. One more reason to get the house in order -- and a welcome deadline! Yesterday, I finally cleared off the coffee table that has held the giant plate my sister gave me for Christmas. It has been holding my hand sewing supplies at times. I went into the basement to get a picture hanger. Bang! Into the wall. Hey, it's not perfectly centered on the wall, but now the giant plate decorated with irises is hanging in the powder room, where she suggested I hang it. It matches some other stuff in there, and it looks so nice. So then, I cleared the rest of the clutter off the coffee table, and washed the dust and gunk off the glass top. It looks great. Why did that have to take three months? Oh, right. Cancer. Well, I had an excuse, for a while. I also went out on the garage, and loaded all the scrap metal into the sled. Put the harness on the dog, and had her haul it to the barn. I had been waiting for permission from hubby. I wanted to put it in our small trailer, so that when the spring thaw comes, we can haul the scrap to the dealer. I only had to remember to ask. (Not easy when you're tired and distracted.) Now I have more room in the garage for my gardening supplies. When we get back from our trip, I'll need a place to organize my gardening activities. So, bottom line to this long story ... even though it seemed like I started out the year slowly, I am getting stronger, and still finding a few things to declutter or put away, and exercising, and getting more energy. I have a renewed commitment to making our home a nice place to live. Hooray for FlyLady.

linnea56 said: "Finish all the projects that are half done. Learn to decide faster and then just DO it. Stop starting a new project because itÂs more fun than finishing the piddly little details from the last one. . . . I need a "get it finished" buddy like some people need a dieting buddy. Someone to hold me responsible. " __________ EXACTLY!! I have so many half-baked ideas floating around in my head, its a wonder anything ever actually gets done. But we are on a roll so far this year, because we got the new light hung in the DR today. Woohoo! Let's hope this is not our swan song for the year. On the drawing board: 1) Total kitchen redo (I already have my plan done for IKEA cabs. I think we have the granite and backsplash decided, and the sink, faucet and range hood are sitting in the barn waiting to start. We cheated and went ahead and installed the new DW two months ago. We have had the money set aside for a long time but I got laid off in September. If I get a job offer I really want next week, we'll get onto this one right away). 2) Finish putting cork everywhere there is currently carpet (we did one small bedroom Labor Day weekend and haven't had the gumption to deal with the disruption necessary to move on to other, more often used rooms). 3) Run power down the driveway to the gate so we can have a light down there and eventually upgrade to an electric gate. Would love to put in some landscape lighting on the drive (uplights/downlights in trees) while we're running the power through there. 4) Maybe do the big landscaping plan we had drawn up in the fall. (We were set to break ground and my gut told me to call it off. I got laid off two weeks later). 5) Get organized enough to have a great antique/yard/moving sale in the spring. A by-product of this will be a trip to the charity and to the dump. Woohoo! 6) Think about changing the beds in the MBR and the guest room to fit the more modern home. But I don't know about all those LOW modern beds . . . more thinking required.

May I make a suggestion for those clearing out basements? Put the teens/20somethings to work on craigslisting/ebaying stuff for you! Think of how much easier it all would be with secretarial assistance! They can: Set you up with an account Take pictures of everything Track down the details for listing (measure items, do an online search for missing manuals, etc.) Haul stuff to wherever you need it to wait for craigslisters (your car/front porch/the curb). You could give them a cut of the proceeds as incentive. Seriously--our basement is a mess and I am not looking forward to future clearouts. It would be so much easier if I had help for the details. You can also put yourself on a charity's regular pickup list. Or several charities' pickup lists--imagine if you had regular pickup of unwanted items twice a month--with a receipt for income tax purposes! If you want to ebay it, how about finding a reseller in your area?