Goals, Not Resolutions

Resolutions are made to be broken. We all know this. The minute you mess up you give up. As in "I'm not eating sugar anymore" and then you do on the second or third day of January, so you just give up and eat any and every kind of sugar for the next 363 days until the next January 1st when you try again.

I prefer to set goals. Goals don't really care if you mess up a little. It just means that you forgive yourself and get back on track. So you ate that entire bag of chocolate chip cookies, it doesn't mean you get to eat a bag of chocolate chip cookies every day until next January. Goals are something that doesn't go away just because you stumble. And goals aren't set in stone. They can be revised according to what works. Goals are also the big thing you strive for but then you make little goals to help you along the way.

It turns out that I've been making the same two goals every year. I just haven't accomplished them.

I was going to post them but I decided my goal list was too personal for human consumption.

So instead I'll just mention that I'll be working on my health, my finances, and my writing.

Interestingly, six of my seven children will be reaching age milestones this year. 25, 21, 18, 16, 12 and 10. Only my 24 year old will not be having a significant birthday.

Other things to look forward to this year - My eldest son is getting married in March, in the Seattle Temple. Although I haven't met my new daughter, I have only heard good things about her and she seemed just right for him by my conversation on the phone. So, he's picked a great girl and he's marrying her in the temple. Isn't that what we as parents strive for?

I'm in a play this year. I'm playing a male marionette. Not only do I have to learn to move like a puppet, I have to do it as a man. Talk about a challange. I just watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with my youngest daughter and I pointed out Dick Van Dykes performance as a puppet while he's planning a castle escape, to my daughter. "That's how we're going to have to learn to move," I told her. Dick Van Dyke is brilliant with his body.

So there we go, two things to look forward to.

I've been having a tough time and feeling pretty down lately. I'm nowhere where I expected to be at this time in my life and certainly not since my divorce. It's disheartening but I rarely give into pity parties.

So I'm hoping 2009 will be better, different and offer something life changing.

Everybody Sing!

I've been listening to a lot of Christmas music lately. When I was a teenager nobody recorded new Christmas music, now an artist isn't really an artist until he's put out a Christmas album.

One thing I've noticed and which I love...at Christmas time everybody is a Christian. It's okay and expected to sing about Jesus and God's love while you're singing about Rudolph and snow and silver bells.

Even the Jews do it. Both Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond have Christmas albums. In fact Neil has two. I wonder what he was thinking as he sang O Holy Night, and Mary's Boy Child.

The Jackson Five, devout Jehovah Witnesses at the time, (translation- Christians who don't celebrate Christmas) put out a Christmas album. It must have been wierd for them to sing about Santa Claus coming to town when they didn't even get to hang stockings.

Hollywood may be notoriously anti-Christian, but nobody told the music world this. Nashville is decidedly pro-Christian and country music has never been shy about it even daring to put (gasp) religious songs mixed in with the heartache ones about losing wife, truck and dog.

But it's Christmas time when we get to shout from the rooftops about Jesus, we just agree as Christians that Santa gets to share the rooftop.

Of course there will always be those who like to ruin the fun and complain and deny Christmas - check out Brad Paisley's "Kung Pao Buckaroo Holiday" sometime. It's hilarious and brings home a real truth about political correctness.

I'm fortunate that I live in a town where God has not been banned from schools and public places.

I've never understood the banning. How do kids learn from this. Interestingly the same people that are for banning God from schools would be horrified at banning books.

I'm more of the type that says "Let's celebrate everything! Christmas, Hannakka (anyone know how to spell that), Kwanza, Festivas, Chrismikka, bring it on. Let's learn about people's celebrations, not ban them. Isn't that what education is about?

So now I'm going back to listening to people celebrate Jesus and how he saved the world.

Yep, it's a good time of year.

I Want to Be A Scrooge

So what does the name Scrooge bring to your mind?

Like most people you'll think of someone miserly, mean spirited and lacking love for anyone. Bent over, twisted and grasping who can't even enjoy his own spoils never mind bestowing them on anyone else.

A Christmas Carol is a long time favorite but I wonder if we've missed the point that Dickens was trying to make.

At the end of the book, Dickens says of Ebeneezer Scrooge "Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all and infinately more...He became a good friend, a good master, and as good a man as the good old City knew, or any good old city, town or borough in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them...His own heart laughed, and that was quite enough for him...And it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well."

Now that doesn't sound like a miserly, mean spirited person at all. In fact it sounds like a Christ-like person.

In fact we could draw similarities between the fictional Scrooge with the very real Saul/Paul. Saul too was a completely different person when he started out than the Paul he ended up being.

Isn't that what we are here for? To change our Saul/Scrooge ways into becoming better men/women, better masters, better friends? To put away our old selves and become new ones?

So shouldn't we remember Scrooge the way he ended up instead of the way he was in the middle of his life?

Maybe we should all become Scrooge like.

Pops and Clicks and Static Oh Joy

I'm one of those people that doesn't let go of stuff. I still have the first watch I was ever given even though it doesn't work and the gold is flaked off. I got it from my godmother on my fifth birthday and it's on a chain instead of wristband. Come to think of it, I've got the second watch she ever gave me, as well as the porcelain dog and the swedish red wooden horse.

I'm sure there's even an orange stuffed monkey somewhere around here.

Consequently I've hung onto all my vinyl records, lugging them around even when I didn't have a turntable to play them on. Sure some of them have been put on CD but I didn't want to pay for music I already owned.

My check for my story went for necessities, but I did buy myself a birthday present with it. A turntable with software that coverts my vinyl into MP3, a much more space saving and convenient way of listening to music.

So now I'm in bliss listening to old records and knowing one day I don't have to lug around 3000 pounds of vinyl. Instead it will be able to fit into something I can carry in one hand, in fact I might one day be able to pocket all this music.

Sometimes I really do love technology.

I just wish that I could get the cleanup of pops and noise to work. Either it makes no difference or it takes out all the music. Any experts out there?

Variety is the Spice of Life, If You Understand How to Season It

I grew up with variety shows. It was an honored and respected form of entertainment. Take some funny skits, add some music, a little dancing, and some kidding around, dress everyone up and you have a show. Every star at some point had their own show, Judy Garland, Andy Williams, Nat King Cole, Red Skelton, Danny Kaye, Dean Martin and Sid Ceasar all paved the way for the seventies when I watched Donny & Marie, Captain and Tenille and one of the funniest ladies ever - Carol Burnett.

There was even a sitcom about a variety show. The Dick Van Dyke Show was about a comedy writer who wrote for the fictitious Alan Brady Show.

But by the end of the 70's the variety show was almost dead, mainly due to a smorgasbord of really badly done variety shows. Any one else remember the Brady Bunch Variety Hour? Or how about Pink Lady and Jeff? Barbara Mandrell managed to carry it on for a while longer with some respectibility, and then of course there was always Saturday Night Live which although technically it's a variety show it never was intended for families, which is what the variety show is about.

So when Rosie O'Donnell did a variety show I thought I would check it out. Now I find Rosie funny when she isn't being the angry political lesbian. And although she doesn't have a great voice, okay, she can't sing, she's usually overpowered by much better singers who carry the project while she says funny things.

The show was painful. No funny skits. I can't say anything remotely nice about Liza Minelli's performance which is too bad since she's a legend and deserves better. There was a stripper number done to a bunch of advertizing of various products they were giving away, and not only did Rosie sing badly as expected, she wasn't even remotely amusing.

I want Carol Burnett back. Bring on Eunice and Mama. I want to visit with the Queen and the guard who had no insides. I want to see the spoofs of movies.

I guess I'll have to be happy with YouTube.

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Alert! Alert!

One of my stories got published in Woman's World. The current issue (Dec 3 I think) is on newstands now but it won't be for long.

Sure some editing got done to it. But my name is on it and I got a check and another magazine to add to my list.

Coming Back

I'm baaaack.

I know it's been two months. Okay more than two months.

First I got busy with some writing projects with deadlines and then when those were through, I suffered writers block.

I've never had writers block before. Still have it. This post and the other one I wrote have been a struggle. And I feel guilty for not accomplishing anything.

So there's the confession.

And here's a link to something I found interesting. Sanctity of Marriage. I don't agree with everything that this blogger says on everything, but on this subject I'm nodding my head. You can read my reaction here. When Bad Is Called Good.

And hopefully I can begin writing again.

Jay Leno I'm Not

Yeah, I took some time off.

So here's my review, "The Santa Letters by Stacy Gooch-Anderson" . There are people who will not like me.

In the news today, a 59 year old woman gave birth to triplets.

If you were to see me now my eyes would be big and round and moving like kalidoscopes.

She got donated eggs or something. I'm not sure whether I was more shocked by this piece of news and the implications or the declaration from the French government that they won't allow women over 42 to recieve donated eggs.

Apparently I am now over the age where it's acceptable to have a baby. Not that I want one, I've already done more than my fair share in that department, it's just the fact that I'm considered too old now.

I wish my body knew that, it would make some days easier. I mean if I'm going to be declared too old I should get the benefits from that declaration. But no, I'm old and still have to suffer.

Fifty-nine with baby triplets. By the time she's done with diapering them, she'll be diapering herself. They're going to all be in walkers at the same time. They better hurry up and get licences so they can drive her around.

Okay, not fair. Lots of men have babies at 59 and no one thinks anything of it. But then they're not the ones who actually take care of them. They hire nannies for their wives. They hire nannies for their babies too.

Okay, I'll stop.