___________ New Year

Please fill in the blank with the New Year's adjective of your choice (happy, crappy, ridiculous, whatever).

As for me, I look at a new year as the next day in a regular week. It's necessary, since it comes next. But I choose not to describe it so early in the year.

I don't do New Year's resolutions. They are lame and they never stick.

However, I do have some goals for the year. This does not mean that I will start them tomorrow, Day 1 of the new year. And this does not mean I "resolve" to actually do them.

They are ideas. They are goals. They are plans, and sometimes plans change, and that is a caveat that I am completely comfortable with.

I am not a failure if I do not accomplish them. They are areas to focus on and things to think about amidst a whole lot of other stuff that I've got going on.

Nothing more.

1. I have a very tiny pair of jeans that I bought a couple of years ago, amidst much ridicule for being able to fit into said pair of tiny jeans at the time. I did not like the attention of being able to fit in those jeans, and I usually strictly keep to not letting anyone know what size clothes I wear because I've found that skinny people only end up getting ridiculed when people find out how tiny our clothes are.

I could do without that. I deal with enough crap on a daily basis as it is. Let's just say I wear the same size clothes as you do, and leave it as that.

Anyway, at the time of the tiny jeans, I was in much better shape than I am now. As such, at this very moment, I cannot fit into that particular pair of jeans . . . and it bothers me greatly. Not because I am obsessed about needing to fit into skinny clothes, or because I am actually fat now. I've just never had to think about it before.

Being one who has never had much issue with weight (all of you who at this very moment who hate me for writing about my weight can feel free to click on another blog . . . I don't care), I don't really know what to do with the fact that I've gained a few pounds. I am getting older, my metabolism is changing (for the first time ever), and weight is not necessarily that "one more thing" I care to have to start worrying about at this stage in my life.

Thirty-something years of never having had a pair of jeans I can't get into creates a bit of a stress issue, I don't care who you are.

However, the obvious thing that I need to do is to start exercising again, and watching closer as to what I eat. I've gone completely off the deep end eating whatever I want (namely a lot of pizza and cheese) and rarely exercising. I do understand that this problem is fixable. I just have to make up my mind to be less lazy, and to not let working all of the crazy hours I work keep me from getting on the bike a few times a week.

It's a balance issue more than anything else. My life is a bit unbalanced and consumed by work, at the moment.

Therefore, my first goal is to get into those tiny jeans again . . . at some point in 2008.

2. My second goal is to find a church that I can stand to go to as a regular part of my life.

I thought my last church was "the" church for me, for good. However, I was wrong about that. And I've been pretty broken-hearted about it since I figured that out.

Now that I've taken a year off from being way too involved in a church that wasn't what I thought it was, I feel like moving toward a new church is something I'm starting to get ready to approach.

Therefore, my goal in 2008 is to find a church, and go . . . at least sometimes. No pressure to run the place. No pressure to join everything and spend all of my time at said church or with said church people.

The goal is to find a place where I am comfortable, liked, able to learn and grow, hang out with God with people who also like to hang out with God, not compromise my beliefs to fit in, and to build new friendships.

Again, balance is key.

God has been very good to me in 2007. It's weird to say that I needed a break from church, but I think it's been a break that had God's blessing, if that makes sense.

For now, I am content to be at home, on New Year's Eve, in my pjs, on the couch (and about to eat some pizza). I don't care that it's New Year's Eve and it is socially unacceptable to not be out with people, at a party, or celebrating in some way.

I am too old for such parties, and I have no problem blogging to the world that a decent New Year's Eve for me involves my flannel pjs and my fuzzy leopard print slippers.

Tomorrow will be much of the same, likely sleeping until about 11am or so, and probably not embarking on my goals just yet.

Plus, as I've mentioned before, I don't see so good right now. So, being the shut-in that I am, it's important to me to be home when it's dark outside, especially with the New Year's Crazies out on the roads tonight.

Safe New Year, everyone.

(That's the adjective of choice for me.)

C.T.