Happy New Year!

It was a pretty quiet ushering in of 2005 at my house. J stayed up until almost 10:00 (I can put him in bed, but I can't make him sleep), and I lasted long enough to have a glass of wine (Cap Rock's Palo Duro Canyon white, yummy! Here's the winery website: Cap Rock Winery ) and give a big ol' one-finger salute to the back end of 2004 at midnight. I missed all the folderol on TV, but that's OK - New Year's Eve television viewing wouldn't have been the same without Dick Clark, anyway. I've told every divine power that might be taking an interest that I am by golly ready for some GOOD things to come my way in 2005!!!!!

Saturday was a decent day (although if it's true that whatever you do on the New Year, you'll do all year long, I'm in for lots of heavy lifting! LOL). K was a big, big help getting J's room ready for the forthcoming big boy bed. He moved the little dresser from J's room to my room (and had to move a lot of crap out of the way in both places to do that), so there's now room to convert the crib into a full-size bed when the new mattress arrives next Monday. It's nice to have that much taken care of. I cleaned and organized other stuff while K worked on that. I still have a lot of cleaning to do, but moving that dresser was a big project. It looks nice in my room - I have my new stereo set up on top of it, and when I've got time, I'm going to organize the big dresser in J's room to make room for what's in the little dresser, so I'll have more storage space for me. I really appreciate that he took care of that for me. I probably could have done it myself, but it was nice not to have to do that.

Sunday: more cleaning. I tackled the music room closet again, and ruthlessly threw out crap. Lots of old cassette tapes kissed it goodbye! I kept my old mix tapes, ones I probably couldn't duplicate without spending a lot of money on CD's I don't particularly want to buy, just to get the one or two songs I like. I was able to move five big Rubbermaid containers of bears into that music room closet and get them out of my bedroom (more on the bear collection in a minute). I'm just tired of my bedroom being the repository for things that have nowhere else to be stashed, and I'm doing something about it. I am reclaiming that space and working to make it a restful, peaceful retreat for myself. I deserve better than to have my bedroom be a place that I walk into and think, "oh crap, I *really* need to clean" every time I see it. That's hardly restful (and hardly conducive to impressing any guys, should I ever decide any are worthy of being added to the very, very, very short list of men I've slept with!). So I'm reorganizing and pitching stuff and selling stuff and clearing out crap. It felt good, although I've got muscles that are kind of sore today from the unaccustomed abuse.

The bear collection. I was a huge, huge bear collector for years - mostly Boyds and Pooh, with a couple that are unique and a couple that might actually be worth a little something. The little furry critters (and decorative plates, and figurines, and...) were taking over my house. Funny, though, since J was born, my insane need to collect and acquire more bears has pretty much disappeared. In fact, I'm seriously considering weeding out my collection, selling some on eBay, donating some to a local police department that collects bears for children who are crime victims. I'm not really sure why the need to collect has disappeared. I'm growing up, maybe? I don't feel the need to hide behind them anymore (like I hid behind my weight and my religion for so very long)? All I know is, enough. I don't need any more, I don't want any more, and I want to clear out a lot of the ones I've got. My space is limited, and I don't think keeping a bunch of bears around is the best use of that space.

In all the cleaning, I found a couple more of my old journals - one from 1995, when K and I had first gotten married, and one from about 1996/97, when he was going back to school and I was working as an assistant DA. Interesting, interesting reading, and some of it was pretty sad (reading what I'd written about our wedding, about my mother's death and funeral). But it amazed me to see that, even then, very early on in our marriage, there were things that bothered me. Some of them were the same things that I've been trying to deal with during our separation and the time leading up to it. Why did I not have the balls to say anything about it for so many years, to stand up for myself, to tell him what I did and didn't appreciate and like and expect and hope for in terms of our relationship? Had I done so, would things have turned out differently? Or does the fact that the things that have bothered me seem not to have changed over the years mean that we were a lost cause from the get-go? I don't know. I was just surprised, because I didn't remember feeling that way so early on. I guess memory has a way of painting things a rosier pink than maybe they really were. And I guess that's the blessing and the curse of keeping journals -you get to see how things really were from your own perspective, but then...you get to see how things really were, and maybe sometimes we're better off not remembering all the details.

I'm trying my best not to eat the Hershey kisses that I keep on my desk for co-workers. I have GOT to do better about eating right and exercising in the New Year. I didn't go to all the trouble to have weight-loss surgery to stall at where I am now. I didn't go to all that trouble to gain the weight back because I eat crap because that's what's easiest. I NEED to get back to losing weight, need to get healthier. But I must say one thing - it's a big, refreshing change to be able to think about weight loss like a "normal" person instead of a hugely overweight one. For so many years, I started all weight-loss efforts already convinced that I was doomed to fail because I had so much weight to lose. Now, I know I can do it, if I just put forth the effort. And it's still up to me to put forth that effort, the band won't do it for me. So - y'all remind me when I falter that I CAN DO THIS!!!!! I CAN say no to Hershey kisses. I CAN see the backside of 200 pounds and never hit that weight ever again. I CAN buy smaller, prettier clothes before the year is up!!!

So in a nutshell, here's what I hope to accomplish in 2005: Get weight loss back on track. Get my house dejunked and organized and clean. Get closure some way or another regarding my relationship with K - I don't still want to be in this holding pattern this time next year. Straighten up my finances - pinch pennies until they scream, and build up a little savings account. Have employment that, if it isn't something I'm absolutely passionate about, is at least something I enjoy (I'm keeping an eye out for a research/investigations position where I am now, that would be exceedingly cool). Laugh more and stress less. Enjoy the time with my son, remembering that he won't be small forever.

Here's to a new and improved year, and a new and improved me. Perhaps I'll post pictures when I get it figured out, so y'all can see where I started and where I am now (a work in progress, but still an improvement).