Why I Don’t Make New Year’s Resolutions
According to Goals Guy, the history of New Year’s resolutions dates back all they way to 153 B.C. Wow, I had no idea!
I used to make resolutions for the new year, and stopped a number of years ago. Why? It’s kind of like why “Diets Don’t Work”
Resolutions, goals, promises, or whatever you want to call them are only as good as YOUR commitment to achieving them.
It shouldn’t matter if it’s January 1st or June 1st when the real intent should be an ongoing lifestyle and not a “to do” list of things you know you’ll never accomplish.
Instead, set benchmarks. Why? Because benchmarks have accountability. A benchmark is a goal in which there is an absolute minimum target that you have to achieve and you will accept no less.
A benchmark will force you to map out a strategic plan to actually get there. Here’s what I mean.
Shutterfly Review Followup
A couple of weeks ago, I posted about my personal experience in creating personalized photo books with Shutterfly for my parents, in-laws and my son’s girlfriend.
My mom was the first to receive hers and she absolutely loved it. She said the quality was outstanding and said her neighbors raved about it.
My mother-in-law waited until Christmas to open hers and we were there Christmas Day, so I got to see the photo book firsthand.
I have to say, and I think I can speak for the rest of my family, we were totally impressed. The quality is outstanding. I could not have put something that good together if I tried.
The cover, the binding, the pages and color printing of the photos were top-notch! I had been worried about the single page photos and their clarity, thinking perhaps that they may turn out grainy because of their larger size.
Merry Christmas!
I say this every year, and each year, I still can’t believe how fast the year goes by. Must be one of those things that after you turn 30, time is in fast-forward.
2008 was anything but boring in our house. Between the boys’ graduations and ceremonies, a trip to Disney World, several trips to Colorado and of course, our cross country move to Colorado for 10 weeks and then back.
Emily is now 8 and this is the first year she was really hard to buy for. She didn’t give us much indication what she wanted for Christmas and there really wasn’t that “the only thing I want is…”
This was also her doubting Santa year. I have to admit, I was certainly not ready for that yet.
However, thanks to our good friend, Todd Schager, Emily showed up on Santa’s nice list, so now she had absolute ‘proof’. You can view the video at the link below:
Homemade Gingerbread Cookies
So, when there’s 2 feet of snow outside and the weather is a brisk 31 below (no joke!), what else do you do?
Bake homemade gingerbread cookies, of course!
The whole house smells like gingerbread, I wish I could send that through the computer. Doug made the gingerbread dough yesterday. He and Emily rolled out the dough and made the shapes.
We have wreaths, bells, trees, stars, candles and stockings. We have some really cool metal cookie cutters that I got from a website years ago called, “Off the Beaten Path”
They have over 800 cookie cutters and the good metal ones, too. Plastic just doesn’t give you the same sharpness as the metal ones do.
I just love the spicy / sweet combination of gingerbread, so I made a royal frosting, too, so that we could add some really fun decorations. Emily did great with the decorations and it was a lot of fun!
