New Year's resolutions - take two

Unlike last year, I haven't said much yet about my New Year's resolutions. Why? Well because at the end of 2009, I looked back and realized that I failed on at least half of them and that by broadcasting my resolutions at the very beginning of the New Year - when life seems so hopeful and full of promise - I'm just setting myself up for failure. Here's what I was planning to do:

• Get to the gym more consistently. Yes, until about March 17. Though we did find a new gym, which is something.
  
• Find a church we really like, or get more involved with our current church. Nope.
• Be more decisive. Bummer. I really should have referred back to this when I was considering that other job and then flip-flopped on it for six weeks.
  
• Cut out the clutter--both physical and figurative. Well, I did clean out the physical stuff. I don't keep a lot of junk.
  
• Plan more meals at home instead of the current default option of going out to dinner. I'm not sure how much we went to dinner in 2008, but we hardly ate "in" all the time in 2009.
  
• Decrease utility bills by ten percent (a good suggestion from a Suze Orman column I read). Did it! Thank you to my new thermostat.
  
• Keep the cell phone charged. Oh, I guess. What a stupid resolution that was. At least I haven't lost one lately. Maybe that's because I consolidated my work and personal cell phones into an iPhone and now I can't live without it.
  
• Read or listen to a new book every month. Filed away in the sounded-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time category. And, no, that didn't happen. In fact, I can't even remember at the moment the last book I read.
  

So, this year I decided to wait until the end of January before settling on some New Year's resolutions. (This seems fair, since our Annual Convention isn't really conducive to, well...anything besides working long hours.) And I decided to keep them short & sweet so that maybe I remember them this time. Here they are:

• Go to the gym more consistently. Janice's wedding is five months from tomorrow, meaning five months from this evening I will be gorging myself on whatever I can scrounge from the rehearsal dinner and the other evening festivities. As a result, I need to hit the gym. Hard. For those of you who think I'm already in good shape, well...you haven't seen the other bridesmaids. I have work to do. Kickboxing it is.
  
• Find a church we really like. Instead of just using a dartboard approach to churches, I reached out to my friendly neighborhood listserve for some recommendations. You know how they say "be careful what you wish for?" I got 40 suggestions. If we can find a church by the end of 2010, I'll be thrilled. And the one we went to yesterday? Well, let's just say that isn't going to work out. One down, 39 to go.
  
• Try one new recipe per month. I'm in a kitchen funk, making the same baked chicken and broiled salmon and shrimp stir-fry on a consistent basis. (Cereal is good for dinner, too, though Chad is never thrilled by that idea.) So Chad went through the cookbooks over the weekend and picked out one for us to try: cilantro chicken. On a scale of 1-10, I'd give it an 8, meaning that it wasn't the most excellent creation I've ever eaten - or made - but I'll probably do it again.
• Be more decisive. Oh, what the heck. Let's try this resolution again. Besides, aren't new years really all about second chances?