Happy New Year! What are your resolutions?

Or do you eschew making resolutions?

I do think it’s useful to have some external marker to motivate you to set goals, but I also have longstanding goals that are independent of the January 1st marker:

• Lose that 11 pounds of telecommuting weight gain.. Yeah, last spring I was down to “lose 5 pounds” but then over the summer and fall gained back what I had lost, plus an extra pound.  Lesson learned:  I have to exercise more consistently, eat snacks and sugar way less often (though I can’t give it up entirely), and, no, a 10 minute bike ride to the ice cream shop and 10 minutes back, at a 7-year-old’s pace, doesn’t balance out an ice cream cone.

• Write that article that I have in my head, and shop it around to the less-technical professional/ retirement policy publications.

• Get involved in the local Republican Party organization.  Illinois had some pretty lousy candidates for the 2014 election, so I just couldn’t get excited, and, of course, in 2012, our primary was so late it didn’t make a bit of difference.  But I should at least answer for myself the question of whether there’s anything that one can do at the grassroots level — besides give cash to one’s preferred candidate, to fund their NH and Iowa campaigns.  (And does that cash make much difference, compared to the deep pockets of the establishment funding their preferred candidates?)

• And, of course, then there are the usual parenting resolutions:  stay on top of the middle son and his homework, help the youngest invite more friends to play, watch out for the oldest’s use/misuse of technology, and more date-nights with my husband.