As decreed at the beginning of 2010, I am holding myself completely accountable for my New Year’s Resolutions. I have given myself simple pass or fail grades, but as you must realize, a failure at one silly little resolution may not really be ALL my fault and often can be explained… As it turns out, I did pretty awesome.
Resolution #1. Arriving at work on time. Initial Grade: FAIL.
I wholeheartedly blame my pregnancy for the capitol letters in the word fail – it is beyond impossible to get enough sleep while in either the first trimester or the third trimester, or a vast number of days during the second trimester, to actually not only be able to get up on time but WANT to as well. I can say with a fair amount of confidence that I not only did I NOT arrive at work on time the majority of my pregnancy, but that I could actually probably count on my fingers the number of days I DID arrive at work on time for that really very small portion of the year that was taken up by my pregnancy.
Of course pregnancy related lateness is completely forgivable, and I must only focus on the three months before pregnancy occurred to REALLY grade myself. And for those three months, I will blame the Unsupportive Louse and his terrible unsupportiveness for my chronic lateness. I mean come on, how selfish can a husband be that he is more concerned with his thesis than with the amount of sleep his wife is able to achieve?
Ultimate Grade: Excused.
Resolution #2. Decreasing my Facebook Addiction. Initial Grade: FAIL.
Not only has my Facebook addiction not decreased, it has undoubtedly worsened. Perhaps exponentially. But in my defense, I completely forgot this was a resolution. Who the hell would make such a dumbass resolution? And really, there are so many more people on Facebook now, and so many more of them are utterly addicted than before, leading to a massive increase in daily status updates, picture uploads and wall postings that it’s hardly my fault. I didn’t allow it to interfere with my work (to a noticeable extent), nor my social life (one could certainly argue it only helped in this category) and almost never checked it at all from home – which proves it’s really hardly an addiction at all. Not only that, I actually don’t have a smartphone from which I can log on, which means my “addiction” is most likely far less than the rest of the addicted population.
Ultimate Grade: Excused.
Resolution #3: $20 minimum balance in my checking account at all times. Initial Grade: PASS!!!
Go Penney, you’re fricking awesome! And not only did I pass, I actually passed without using my built-in pass protector. I actually could give credit to the Unsupportive Louse’s new high-paying job (which is still significantly less than mine, PhD or not…) but really, we have separate accounts, what does his money have to do with me? Besides, it’s way more fun to give myself all the credit.
Ultimate Grade: A+++
Resolution #4: Contributing to my savings account monthly. Initial Grade: pass.
The first few months, I did put a little bit in the savings every month, so I started off perfectly fine. Then the tenant in our beautiful but poorly purchased, un-refinanceable, and over-mortgaged condo decided to stop paying her rent. Not only did I have to stop putting money in savings, I had to start taking money OUT of savings. This, however, is clearly not my fault and is completely forgivable. AND we also made a great big, huge, massive, ginourmous contribution to the Energizer Bunny’s college fund this year, so I feel that counts for a lot. And there’s always the pass protection clause added in to the resolution which allows my automatic retirement fund/college savings plan contributions to count towards savings account contributions in case of failure to deposit monies in ACTUAL savings account, and since those in fact are automatic, they always occurred and allowed me to pass this resolution despite the perceivable failure.
Ultimate Grade: B.
Resolution #5: Pay off my last credit card. Initial Grade: fail.
But it’s close, it’s SOOO close. Way closer than at the end of last year. Under 100 bucks close. I could just write the check now and you wouldn’t even know that I’d lied and hadn’t actually paid it off in 2010 close. In fact, I’m writing the check right now. And pretending I sent it last week. Done.
Ultimate Grade: A!
Resolution #6: Yelling a little itty bit less at the Unsupportive Louse. Initial Grade: FAIL.
But come on, dude, I’m pregnant, how can anyone expect a pregnant woman to yell LESS at her unsympathetic, encouragement-incapable, unassistive husband?? It would be unfair to even begin to expect such a thing.
Ultimate Grade: A. Seriously, the guy’s lucky he’s alive. If it weren’t for this resolution, he might have been.
Resolution #7: Being nicer to the Walking Guilt Trip. Initial Grade: Fail.
See #6. Also, I was WAY better before she chose to exert her passive aggressive tendencies regarding a slight propensity of mine to arrive late to engagements. Then she pissed me the f”*& off and I think it is completely understandable that I couldn’t treat her any better than she was treating me; after all, I am only as good as I was raised.
Ultimate Grade: Forgiven. Who could blame me?
Resolution #8: Eat fewer desserts. Initial Grade: Pass. Ish.
While I may have in fact eaten more desserts, I WAS, after all, eating for two for the majority of the year. And I most definitely put extra effort into baking any homemade desserts healthier, which I think may have been the most important factor in my list of options - after all, if I’d just bought cookies instead of making them on my own with some whole wheat flour and maybe some dried fruits, I would have not only been eating less healthy I would also have not had the great exercise of standing on my feet while doing the baking. Plus, I almost always stole any desserts for the baby while no one was looking, which means they didn’t count, which means my dessert consumption most likely decreased, even if we’re NOT counting the healthier bit.
Ultimate Grade: A.
Resolution #9: End the year 5lbs lighter than I began it. Initial Grade: fail.
First of all, I had a baby 3 weeks ago, so let’s just give me a flipping break here. Second of all, when I wrote these damn resolutions, I actually thought I might be pregnant AT THE TIME, which would have meant I had over 3 months to go from my pregnancy weight back down to a reasonable size. As it turned out, the Unsupportive Louse’s sperm were not nearly so potent as we once believed and it took him a few extra months. But let’s not blame him, after all he IS getting old. And since I did just push a baby out of my uterus and have not yet stopped bleeding and therefore can’t yet exercise intensely enough to actually lose any weight, I’d say the 15lbs less weight I have on me today than 3 weeks ago is enough to pass this stupid resolution anyway.
Ultimate Grade: Discarded. But if it had been kept, it would have been an A.
Resolution #10: Writing lots. Inital Grade: fail.
Unless you count solely Facebook status updates, then it’s a Pass with a capital P. But I actually really did write lots for the first 9 whole months of the year. Lots of blogs and lots of e-mails and even the real writing that this resolution was actually intended for: my book. Then my stomach became so massive that my laptop could no longer sit anywhere near my former body and my arms actually could not reach the keyboard and my back could not actually support the excess weight so that even sitting up caused spasms and my bladder became so squashed that I literally had to get up once an hour to pee even overnight which combined with everything else meant I had to spend 12hrs in bed a night to come even remotely close to getting enough sleep, which all led to a complete lack of time, patience or ability to write anything at all during the last few miserable months of my pregnancy. Which means, once again, it could hardly be blamed on me that I did not accomplish all I had hoped to accomplish in those last few months of 2010.
Ultimate Grade: A-. I could have written a few more blogs, yeah? Yeah. I’ll do better this year…promise.
