New Year's Resolutions

I imagine that a portion of this blog will be devoted to the progress of my New Year's Resolutions 2011, since that's something that will be occupying my thoughts this year.  We decided to go with a "top ten" list of manageable and measurable goals for the year.  Notice I said "manageable"...I decided against "clean the barn storage" (too lofty), "fix my Mustang" (never got started), and "go through old-house boxes" (let's keep a lid on it).  Also "take a shower everyday" may be measurable, but not realistic, so that didn't make the cut.  Besides, people would know when I broke that one, and call me out on it.  That would just be embarrassing.  At least now no one points out when I smell like baby vomit and unwashed hair.


But I digress.


So as we go along this great year of 2011, let's see how my NYRs come along....


First update: NYR #8: read 8 books this year.  Ok, stop laughing, this would be a major accomplishment for me seeing as how I've tried to do the library's summer reading program (5 books) for about seven years now, and have not once completed it.  I'm more of a magazine reader, so to read 8 books this year will be great.  Last week I have finished one book, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson, but unfortunately it doesn't count since I started it in 2010.  This book is a writer's memoir of growing up in the 50s and is hilariously funny.  I especially liked how he researched topics outside of his own little world in Des Moines, so I felt like I was actually learning something about the times back then.  Marcus thought it was funny when I would laugh out loud when reading it (something I only do when people are around, oddly) and then read him the passage.


From the foreword of the book:
"My kid days were pretty good ones, on the whole.  My parents were patient and kind and approximately normal.  They didn't chain me in the cellar.  They didn't call me "It."  I was born a boy and allowed to stay that way.  My mother, as you'll see, sent me to school once in Capri pants, but otherwise there was little trauma in my upbringing.
   Growing up was easy.  It required no thought or effort on my part.  It was going to happen anyway.  So what follows isn't terribly eventful, I'm afraid.  And yet it was by a very large margin the most fearful, thrilling, interesting, instructive, eye-popping, lustful, eager, troubled, confusing, serene, and unnerving time of my life.  Coincidentally, it was all those things for America, too."


Now I am working on Michael Pollan's book Food Rules, which is sort of cheating since it is such a small book and I already know the lesson.  It takes about 30 minutes to get through (really) and I've put in about 20 so far.  But I really need a "win" right now, so Food Rules will be it.