Goodbye, 2006!

This is my last post of 2006.

Darryl and I are really kickin' it up over here--we've been cleaning all day, and by cleaning, I mean CLEANING. (Darryl was washing the intake air vent of our bedroom with soap and water, if that's any indication.) We "super-cleaned" two rooms, and I'm in the midst of doing just a good dust, vacuum, and straighten in the other rooms. Boy, do we know how to party like it's 1999!

I do have a couple of resolutions I want to put out there. Maybe posting them here will help keep me more accountable. Any chastising or tsk-tsk-ing is welcome if I get off track:

1. Like many Americans, I want to be more in shape. I've decided to try a new approach and simply eat less (or fewer calories) and move more. I don't want to get obsessed by the number on the scale, but go more by how my clothes fit. I want to drink fewer diet cokes, and I would really, really, really like to get to the gym 3 times a week. (To a real gym rat, 3 times a week seems like nothing, but trust me--it is a whole heck of a lot better than the ZERO times I'm going right now.) I think the gym thing will help me with my stress level, too.

2. I want to make better use of my time. I don't really think I lie on the couch and do nothing all that much, but I think I could be more productive with smaller chunks of time. This is especially true when it comes to grading papers. I typically think I need a big chunk of time to grade, but really, when I have just ten minutes, I could at least knock one paper off the stack.

3. I want to focus on the positive. This really concerns my teaching. I have a tendency to cling to the negativity some students project towards me ("I hate this book" and "This project is stupid," etc.) and let it outweigh the positive things that happen ("Shakespeare is awesome" and "Class was fun today"). I had been getting better about this, but lately this has been my Grendel. Resolution #1 might help with this, too.

I think I'm going to stick with just three--I don't want to overdo it.

I hope everyone has a wonderful 2007...and I hope you are spending your New Year's Eve doing something more exciting than cleaning!