Ringing in the new year

Friends, I am very excited to ring in the new year. I love making new year's resolutions. For a while, I used to make the same one every year. Last year, I decided that that particular goal (to stop "chomping at the bit" and appreciate things more in the moment) is really just going to be an "always" thing, so I made a bunch of small goals to chip away at over the course of the year. I wrote them in the back of my planner and checked in with them every once in a while. They were:

1) Watch less TV. By this I meant "mindless" TV, where I just turn on any old show to zone out. I did pretty well with this in '09 by phasing out The Learning Channel almost entirely. And now we're getting rid of cable and moving to an Apple TV/Roku combo, so I think I'll still be good for 2010.

2) Don't overtip. Was part of a "save money" concept. I'm a rampant overtipper. Still am. Utterly failed at this one. Not going to make a second attempt. Oh well.

3) Keep "adultifying" wardrobe. Major success with this one. Gave many bags of good but teenager-y clothes to the Salvation Army. I even studied some blogs and sites like Polyvore for outfit ideas and bought a few new things that fit well and that I'll get a lot of use out of. I think I'll keep this one up in 2010.

4) Be more open to sad or scary TV/movies. I know, number one was watch less TV, right? Well, that was about mindless TV, and a lot of stuff that I might actually find to be really good art takes a lot out of me, so sometimes I just avoid it (life can be sad and scary enough!) and go for the lighter stuff. I tried this a *bit*, I did make it all the way through Buffy (which is scarier than my usual fare). Still haven't watched The Wire.

5) Take in less celebrity gossip/superficial stuff. Hugely successful. I don't buy gossip rags. (I'm not even sure how I started doing that—I was never into that stuff and then once I was out of the academic bubble I got addicted or something.) I hardly ever go on people.com. I couldn't tell you a thing currently about who's pregnant or breaking up or dangerously losing weight. YESSS.

So far, the 2010 goals are:

1) Save more money. I got a small raise this year and want to start socking more away.

2) Take my vitamins. This is so easy. Why don't I actually do it?

3) Do my own creative projects. Creative energy was an unexpected wedding perk. Gotta ride that out.

4) Don't overbook myself. Ties in with the creative project thing. I have to choose my projects carefully and realistically consider how much time they'll take. Learned my lesson on that this year.

Do you have any resolutions for 2010?