According to the U.S. Naval Observatory, the Vernal Equinox occurs this year on March 20^th at 1:32 pm. It marks the day of the year when the amount of sun and the amount of darkness are exactly equal. Though, more importantly, the Vernal Equinox signals the end of Winter and the beginning of Spring in our hemisphere!

Here in New Jersey, 16 days out from glorious Spring, we’re already starting to see the first signs that it’s on its way.

Firstly, it nearly hit 50 degrees!

Now, though the thermometer reads like Spring, we still have snow in our back yard and through the woods. But, out in the front yard, which is Western exposure, we only have one tiny patch remaining:

Our first robin made her appearance a few weeks ago, just as the snow was starting to melt.  I don’t know where they go for the winter, but they surely are the first harbinger of Spring. And just today we lovingly observed the Canada Geese pairing off. 

As for our gardens, the narcissus are well up and heading towards budding. Although, to be fair, they’ve been up since an unseasonably warm day in January, because in New Jersey weather is just weird sometimes (can anyone say snowpocalypse 2010?), and a few days in January felt more like October.

Our tulips are pushing up through the old mulch in a couple of places, and even our daffodils in the back yard (in the shade), are coming up!

 
Our favorite garden store is open for the season, and yes, we did drive by already, though they don’t have anything much out yet besides mulch.  Wait a week though, and that will change, for sure.  I can’t wait to fill our poor winter bare wine barrel planter with some color!

Once the snow is completely gone, we’ll be out with rakes to get rid of the old leaves & sticks that have built up on the beds, trim back any branches that didn’t make it through the snow, and put down mulch. Sadly, we lost a rhododendron at the end of the season last year, after nursing it through the summer, so I’ll be replacing that first. I’d like to put in a stone path this year through the front bed, and figure out some low-light, low-growing, green ground cover for the “lawn” part of our tiny back yard.  We'll be installing a new bird (squirrel) feeder in the back, and, trading out our snowman garden flag for one that has spring flowers on it. 

We just can’t wait for the warmer days of Spring: the return of song birds, the sweet smell of lilacs, the rainbow colors of tulips, and many glorious afternoons spent in the garden!

Adam, Dan, and I headed up the NJ Turnpike for an exciting trip to New York City to visit the New York Toy Fair being held in the Javits Center in Manhattan. This was Serious Shops' third year (and best yet!) visiting NYTF.

NYTF is a fantastic place to meet up with some of our current vendors, find new products and toymakers, and even catch an early glimpse of the next big thing in the toy world. Of course bringing home toy samples for the kids (and ourselves, of course) is a major plus!

The highlight this year had to be getting my photo taken with Robert Pattinson - you know, Edward Cullen from Twilight? 

Okay, it was just a cardboard cutout, but cool, nonetheless, right?!

We visited the amazing Lego display:

Best item of the show had to be the prototype of the soon-to-be released Rubik’s Slide puzzle on which we’ve spent the last few days mastering the easy level. 

I’m sure it will be a big hit this holiday season! Great brain teaser!

We collected catalogs, tested out puzzles, watched a skateboard demo, shook plenty of hands, walked what felt like miles of aisles, ate super-expensive mediocre food, saw some really unique toys, puzzles, & games, and overall had a really fun, productive time!

Next up: choosing which products to add to our line-up this year.  Stay tuned for new additions like Heye and EuroGraphics jigsaw puzzles!  I’m already looking forward to next year.  

…If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.” ~Maya Angelou

I complain a lot more than I’m even aware.  I think we all do this.  It’s easy to complain; it garners sympathy, empathy, even camaraderie from those around us.  A complaint could be as obvious as, “this house is a mess!” or “the temp is freezing out here!” or as subtle as that inner voice that says, “I should lose some weight” or “feels like I’m coming down with something” when we look in the mirror. I don’t think it’s natural to complain; children don’t complain.  I think it’s a habit that we form over time.

A negative habit! If we’re always thinking or speaking negatively (complaining), we can’t help but see the things around us as negative.  The more negative we see & feel, the more difficult it is for the positive to come through. It only makes sense that the more positive we feel, the more positive we are, and the more positive we’ll see.  If we can break the habit of negative thinking, perhaps our lives will overall become more positive.

My grandmother is a wonderful example of the power of positive thinking. I remember back when I was a sulky teenager, she’d wake us in the morning singing, “You Are My Sunshine…”… and then we’d proceed to pull the covers up over our heads.  She’d keep singing, undeterred, open the curtains, and pull the covers back down & tell us what a beautiful day it was – to get up with her and celebrate!  She shared with us her belief in the power of positive thinking through her daily morning routine: before getting out of bed, she’d tell herself the kind of day she wanted to have: positive, productive, happy. Once she had her intent set in her mind, she’d get up.  And, that’s the kind of day she’d have. And complaining?  I don’t recall my grandmother ever complaining.  She can find beauty in the worst of situations.  That’s strength & grace. She’s an inspiration to me.

As are my children.  When’s the last time you heard a child complain about anything?  They start the day with such vigor and face everything with joyous expectation. They naturally choose to be & see & create positive. I hope every day to be more like them, and my grandmother.

But, it’s not enough to hope for change; if you want to change, you have to be the change you wish to see (so says Gandhi, and I agree). So, in an attempt to be more positive and take a more active role in really changing my outlook and interpretation of the world around me, I found this really cool tool: Rubber bracelets from A Complaint Free World.

The idea behind the bracelets is that you start with your bracelet on one arm. Each time you complain, gossip, or criticize, you move it to the other wrist.  You keep doing this, hopefully increasing the duration on each arm with time & awareness, until you’ve gone complaint-free for 21 days – essentially creating a new habit of NOT complaining!

They believe that the power of just a few people changing their attitude can have a ripple effect on the world, bringing about, “greater harmony, understanding, prosperity, and peace” http://www.acomplaintfreeworld.org/ourvision.  I agree.

If you’d like to get a set of bracelets for yourself, or just want to read about their vision of shifting the worlds’ consciousness from positive to negative, visit http://www.acomplaintfreeworld.org/ They’re also on twitter @acfw60million

I’m going to give the bracelet a try.

The website says the average person giving it their best try will take between 4 – 10 months to go 21 days complaint-free. I’m going to consider this day one on my positive journey! I hope some of you will join me in this quest to complain less. Please let me know if you take the leap; and how it’s going for you!

Thinking back on my early childhood (I’m talking 70’s & 80’s), we didn’t do much recycling, until, I’d say, the late 80’s.  It’s then that I remember starting to crush soda cans, and saving newspapers. As a young child, growing up in Southern NJ, I recall driving by landfills – huge, hulking, smelly things, and my young mind wondering at the mass quantities of garbage that it took to create them.  At the time, saving the earth seemed more distant - like saving the whales.  The closest thing to home was the anti-littering push. There were signs along the highways indicating hefty fines for dumping, and I remember watching in amazement as a McDonalds bag full of wrappers was tossed out of a car window in front of us while driving down the turnpike (Seriously did anyone, anywhere, ever really think that was okay?). But, aside from littering, it seemed as long as you picked your trash up, and put it in its place, all was well. Reducing waste wasn’t really part of everyday concerns that I recall. I now look around my own house as an adult and see many examples of how recycling, reusing, and reducing waste have become a regular part of our lives. How times have changed - for the better!!

I asked my children yesterday if they could think of ways that we help keep the earth clean, and their answers came quickly & effortlessly.  They said thing like: We save the caps from our bottles. We open the windows when we’re hot instead of turning on the air conditioner. We don’t wash our towels every time we use them.

My heart smiled - these kids really get it - and their attitude can only make the world a better, cleaner place into the future!

Feeling inspired, we went on a search around the house for some other examples of ways we reduce, reuse, and recycle, and here’s what we came up with:

In the kitchen, we have a whole “recycle station”:

One bin for bottles & cans, one bin for paper, and a small can for plastic lids.  Our township only recycles #1 & #2 plastic, glass, aluminum, and steel cans, and newspaper/cardboard. Now, while this is wonderful, it does leave a whole lot of things un-recycled: #3, #4, #5, #6, & #7 plastic for example.  They also do not allow plastic caps of any kind.  Fortunately, we have found a solution for the caps, which previously would have gone right into the garbage.  We participate in the Recycle Caps with Aveda program.

In the midst of writing this blog post, I found a wonderful site that allowed me to locate a township just a few short miles away that DOES collect #3 - #7, including unnumbered plastic! I’m super excited about this, and it seems we’ll have to add level three to our recycle station in our kitchen! Want to find out if there is a place near you that recycles #5 plastic (i.e. yogurt containers)? Check out earth911.com.

At the grocery store, we shop with the reusable bags. 

Most of the shops around here now offer them for only $.99 at check out, and some places, like Ikea & Whole Foods, no longer even produce the plastic bags.  Meaning, you HAVE to bring your own bag. I think this is a wonderful move forward! I put this one in the Reduce AND Reuse categories.

In our kitchen, while I haven’t been able to eliminate paper towels completely (has anyone been able to do this?  Please let me know how!), we keep a stack of dish towels at the ready for drying hands, wiping spills, cleaning surfaces.

I found our old cloth diapers easily double as dish rags! Reuse & Reduce Win!

Also in the kitchen, we’re slowly moving away from juice boxes through the purchase of awesome #5 plastic juice boxes.

I’ve found them easy to clean, and the kids can put them together themselves.  Plus, they were only $1.99 a piece.  That’s just a bit more than the 3-pack of organic juice boxes I usually buy – so we’ve made the cost up quickly! 

I haven’t yet been able to separate myself from bottled water though.  At this point, our township water is fluoridated.  I’m not comfortable with ONLY drinking this water (though we do filter it, it doesn’t take out the fluoride), so I still purchase bottled spring water. But I’m stymied by the plastic – both from the waste production aspect of things, as well as the leaching chemicals into the water aspect of things.  Now, we do recycle the bottles & caps.  But I wish there were affordable glass-containered spring water. That would be a perfect solution!

In the playroom, the kids’ play kitchen itself is a Reuse curbside find!

I can’t believe it would have or eventually will hit the landfill (and I hate to even think of how many plastic play kitchens currently reside in landfills!), so I vow to donate it when we’re finished.  Though it was trashpicked, its in perfect play condition, and we furnish it with yogurt & spice containers that were heretofore un-recyclable.

In the laundry room in the winter, we detach the dryer vent so it vents indoors! 

In this way, anytime a load of laundry is drying (most of the time with a family of four!), it helps heat & humidify our house. Reduce win!

Finally, in the Reduce category, over the last few years, as our incandescent bulbs have burned out around our home, we’ve replaced them with fluorescent bulbs.http://www.projectporchlight.com/ Over time, the savings from switching to fluorescent really adds up –in reduced electric bills, repurchasing of light bulbs, and reduced trash.

 A few of the bulbs were provided by Project Porchlight (they stopped by our door last year, and gave us three!). They’ve distributed nearly 3 million fluorescent light bulbs door-to-door in neighborhoods - for free!  If you’re interested in getting involved in their volunteer program, visit their site here:

So how are you Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling in your life?  I’d love to hear some more ideas!

Deepak Chopra tweeted this yesterday:

Emotions are contagious. We monitor, regulate, and are regulated by each other's emotional state. Your well being improves my well being.

I found it apropos, as I was at the moment pondering these questions: How to get out of a “bad mood”? How to avoid passing negativity along to those around you? How to stay immune to the negative moods of those around us?  How instead, to be open to positive moods, and sharing that energy?

It’s something I think about often as you really can’t escape people. Or yourself, really. So better to learn to interact in the most beneficial ways.

Our energy levels fluctuate throughout the day – and thus our moods.  Lower energy I’ve found directly correlates with more openness to allowing negativity to have an effect me. Negativity & lower energy makes me feel less creative & productive. The less productive I am, the less good I feel.  The less good I feel mentally, the less good I feel physically, the less positive my interactions with others, and my low energy and mood gets passed along. It’s a cycle which I’d like to break.  Of course, the cycle works in the opposite direction as well, so maybe I just want to reverse it, not break it altogether.

The more productive I am, the more energy I have.  The more energy I have, the better I feel, the more able I am to deflect negativity thrown my way, and be creative in dealing with “bad moods” – my own, and others, to be more positive. When I’m positive, people react positively, I feel healthier, and things just work right.  When more things work right, I’m more apt to be grateful and expectant of more things working right. When you expect things to go well, health to be good, and people to behave well, they pretty much do.

So how to achieve that positivism reliably? This is really what I’m pondering. Thought into action.

In the short term, giving myself physical space from negativity or chaos works best.  If I can get a moment to myself, to think, breathe, it makes a world of difference. Taking my focus off a future or past worry, and centering instead on the current moment also works for me. If I cannot get my brain to shift gears from worry to peace, occupying myself with a task that requires concentration & creativity – art making or playing the piano or even organizing a space works to distract my mind and start the cycle working in the opposite direction – the more creative I am, the more positive I am.

Now, I can’t always physically separate myself from the chaos (say, driving kids in the car).  So in these instances, I find music helps center me. The more cheerful, the better. 

Your nerves gather with the altitude
Exhale the stress so you don't come unglued
Somewhere there is a happy affair, a ghost of a good mood

~Owl City (from Rainbow Veins)

Alternatively, outside we go. Nature always has a calming, energy-boosting quality.  You can’t take a walk in the woods and come out feeling bad. I mean, unless you’re attacked by a bear.  (who obviously hasn’t discovered the virtues of positive thinking). But, I digress.

In the longer term, overall positive thinking & repetition of affirmations has worked the best for me, as trite as they may seem: I am healthy. I am productive. Life is good.

I do believe by repeatedly telling myself that things are good, things really can only become better.  Not by tricking myself, but rather looking at what's already there in a better way than I currently am (remembering that when I'm feeling down, negativity flows more easily than positivity). And if things don’t actually become better, at the very least, my reaction to them does.  Thus, the reactions of those around me become improved as well, and can lead to physically changing things for the better. Positive energy transfer: it’s what I’m striving towards – greater positivism, increased gratitude, more peace. It can only be good.

So, how do you cope with negativity and turn it into positivity?

"What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though."

~ Holden Caulfield (The Catcher in the Rye)

I can’t believe J.D.Salinger died yesterday.  Not because of the dying – he was 91, but rather because I didn’t know he was still living.  So all in one day, I’m hit with: J.D. Salinger is dead? Which means he was alive? (He was alive?!) And now he’s dead.

So I admit to my ignorance.  I had never done any research on the man.  I was a self-absorbed teen (who wasn't?). And, I suppose I’ve never been much of an Annie Wilkes. Heck, I lived in Maine for 5 years & never once went looking for Stephen King.

But, with this revelation, I’m now left wondering if I had know he was alive, if maybe I’d have written him a letter – at least. Although, according to NPR, Salinger didn’t grant interviews, with the exception of Betty Eppes in 1980.  I would’ve been 5 then, and hadn’t yet read Catcher; though it wasn’t far off (My mother had a rather liberal view of books: if you can read it, you can read it). I’m not sure if I had written a letter, if he’d even have read it.  Yet, his books helped me slog through adolescence & provided inspiration to write. He earned a letter.  I suppose this post-mortem blog post will have to suffice.

So, I'm thinking now I’ll have to hike up to the attic & dig out all my old dog-eared Salingers, and start re-reading while waiting for the release of the “reams of unpublished fiction in a vault”, as the rumor holds. I wonder if reading Salinger as a 30-something has the same effect as reading Salinger as a teenager? Things to ponder.

Farewell J.D.

Mom?

Yeah?

Do you know who Gandhi is?

Yes.

He taught people about peace.

Yes, he did.

When did he die?

Hmmm, I’m not sure.  Maybe the 60’s?

How old was he?

I don’t really know, maybe in his 80’s?

How did he die?

I don’t know. We’ll have to look it up.

Mom?

Yes?

Why are the days shorter in the winter when the earth is turning the same every day?

Ummm, I don’t know.  I think it’s because of the way the earth is tilted.

But why? The day is always 24 hours. But in the winter there is less daytime than in the summer.
You’re right. We’ll have to look it up.

Every night, after the lights are out, is when my children dig up the best questions. Not just the, “how many hours are in a day”-type questions, but the, “WHY are there 24 hours in a day”-type questions.  

I realize we’ve come to a point, particularly with my 5 year old, that she’s asking questions to which many times I just don’t know the answers.

It’s amazing.  Amazing how much she knows, how much she’s curious about, and the depth of thinking she’s doing to come up with these questions.  And yet, at the same time, I can’t help but feel a sense of disappointment in myself when I don’t know the answer to their questions.  I’m MOM; I should know, right?  So, I’ve fallen back on the, “we’ll have to look it up” response.  And many times, we DO look it up, but I often forget.

I want to remember – for her – for them both – and to actively go to the internet and search with them the next day for answers to their questions.  Their sense of curiosity and wonder is so keen right now, as is their ability to process & save information; I want to take advantage of that, and not squelch it just because I didn’t know the answer. 

I’m thinking of keeping a notepad right outside the bedroom door, and jotting down the questions I didn’t have answers for after they fall asleep, so that the next day we actually CAN look up the information.

How do YOU answer the difficult questions?

So, just like that, I can go from unknown to published. Who needs novels when 140 character obersevations of under-couch contents will suffice? Perhaps my previous assertion that Twittering isn’t really writing was misguided. Because, apparently, my 15 minutes of fame starts…now:

Thank you to @mmiller0912 & @k8zeez for alerting me to the fact that one of my tweets has been mentioned on page 12 in the February 2010 issue of Parents magazine. Wahoo!

One of my resolutions this year is to more effectively & consistently use peaceful, positive discipline with my children.  I strive to connect with them, and teach (the right message) with every interaction; even if that interaction is one of a corrective/disciplinary nature.  Teaching children a certain behavior is undesirable doesn’t have to include anger, punishment, shame, or isolation. And it should include empathy, kindness, and natural consequences. I don’t achieve perfection every time, and do make mistakes. But I strive to learn from my parenting mistakes, to forgive myself for those I make, and move on with better tools in my toolbox (and leave the ones that don’t work in the garbage).

Positive discipline is so important to fostering not just good behavior in children, but more importantly, in developing a fully functional internal guidance system. What distresses me, is that for the overwhelming attitude of adults, “well behaved” is the penultimate goal for children. And because of this belief, any and every method should be used to achieve this in your children.  Punitive or not. Logical or not. I believe it’s a misguided objective, and leads ultimately to frustration. Unfortunately, it begins in babyhood with most - with the unreasonable expectation of producing a “good” baby: one who doesn’t fuss, and who sleeps through the night – and continues on through childhood with the “good” child who doesn’t talk back or tantrum or rebel. It’s as though people have forgotten that when babies cry, and children test limits, they do so from a natural, normal place of need: needing to be held, needing attention, needing to be gently guided. They are asking to be taught, not punished. They don’t come into this world knowing anything. And so, every interaction we have with them teaches them something.  Don’t we want to make sure that what we’re teaching is what we actually want them to learn? 

I fear that in an effort to make children more convenient, parents are resorting punishments and techniques aimed at quieting instead of actually parenting, and teaching: getting to the root of what the baby is trying to say or what the child is trying to learn or express.  Take “cry it out” for example, used rampantly by parents as a means of “teaching” babies to sleep.  While it may work in the short term – and achieve (at least temporarily) the goal of the quiet sleeping baby, it hasn’t actually taught the baby the intended lesson. Baby didn’t learn that sleep is a peaceful state, or to willingly go to bed.  Instead, baby has learned that no one comes when they cry, so stop crying.  That nighttime is a time of loneliness and discomfort.  What this translates to in the long term is a sense of defeatism, lowered self worth, and detachment from parents.  It may achieve a quiet “good” baby, but at what cost?

The same goes for the typical punishments of childhood: spanking, parent-determined consequences, and coerced/enforced/isolation timeouts. Don’t hit, or I’ll spank you.  Don’t talk back or I’ll put you in a time out & I’ll tell you when to get out.  Certainly, the hypocrisy of hitting as a punishment for hitting is obvious. But what about the less obvious parent-determined punishments like timeouts?  I say that punitive discipline (as opposed to natural/logical consequences) only serve to teach children this: Don’t do what parents don’t want you to do; with one big caveat: while they’re watching.  You see, unless you teach children WHY hitting isn’t an acceptable form of expressing frustration – and unless you give them alternative methods of expression, they WILL continue to hit, they’ll just do it when mom isn’t looking.  Kids may appear to behave, but unless they have an understanding of why, and how, the “good behavior” is in appearance only.  Wouldn’t you rather a child have the ability to self-control, instead of behaving only due to external control? A kid who can understand that we don’t hit because it hurts another person, and hurting another person feels awful to me, and to them, and instead I should walk away before I hit, or use my words to express my frustration, is SO MUCH better prepared for life than the child who doesn’t hit because Mom is in the room & doesn’t want to get in trouble. 

To this effort, I strive for more thoughtfulness, and less reactivity in my responses to my childrens’ unwanted behaviors. I keep a keen eye on my own actions and responses, as children learn most from what they see & do than from what they hear.  I DO tolerate more that perhaps is typically expected, because I don’t think just “being good” is good enough for my kids, or for me as a parent.  I expect my children to learn from their behavior as I learn from mine. In my previous post, I mentioned the Positive Discipline parenting cards.  The one I chose for this week seems appropriate to this post:

If you're interested in positive discipline, and getting away from punishment, you may find these articles & sites helpful:

Positive Discipline Methods
What is Discipline?
How Children Really React to Control
The Case Against Time-Out

I love the positive renewing energy that comes from a new year – and with 2010, we start a new decade!

In that spirit, here’s my list of things to improve upon, goals to reach, and things that I will do in 2010:  

1)     Get Healthier. Okay, yes, #1 is uber-cliché & conventional as far as New Year’s resolutions go.  But who couldn’t be healthier? Personally, I need to increase my HDL (“good cholesterol”) and reduce my TSH (thyroid level).  To achieve these goals, I have three things in mind: exercise more, eat more raw, fresh food, and keep better tabs on what exactly I DO put into my body & how much I actually DO exercise.  Fortunately, we have an elliptical machine, a fantastic Blendtec smoother blender which makes super-good fruit & veggie smoothies, and my ever-present pal, iPhone.  With all these convenient, modern technologies how can I not get back to a place of better health?  Of course, losing a bit of weight & getting stronger in the process are, of course, nice side benefits! :)

2)     Practice peaceful, positive discipline with my children more consistently and effectively! I recently purchased a pack of 52 cards to help me stay on track, called “Positive Discipline Parenting Tools: 52 Cards to Improve Your Parenting Skills”. The ideas presented on the cards are fantastic reminders to stay kind, positive, encouraging, and consistent in your interactions with your children.  They suggest positive discipline techniques without overusing praise or punishment. Just perusing some of the cards, I’ve found them to be helpful in making a natural progression from the Attachment Parenting techniques we’ve used with our children as infants/toddlers to preschoolers! If you’re interested in the cards, I purchased them here (not my site & I’m not affiliated, just had a good experience with my online purchase). 

3)     Read 10 books.  Now, ten may not sound that lofty to most.  Frankly it’s not to me either.  But with working, parenting, homemaking, gardening, blogging, etc., one of my favorite pastimes, reading, often gets left by the wayside, so I’m being realistic here folks. One book every 1.25 months I can do. I have 7 on my bedside table, ready to go. In fact, I just cracked the first one open!

4)     Write. More. Often. I so enjoy writing, yet like many other time consuming personal activities, since having children, I’ve pushed it to the backburner. So, 2010 is the year to bring quadrant two (non urgent, important [Don’t know what I’m talking about? Here's a quick review of Steven Covey’s Quadrants] to the forefront, and push quadrant 4 (non urgent, not important) to the background. And when I say write, I’m not talking about Twitter - because while it’s a fun place to share information – the time spent “writing” on twitter (and I use quotations as 140 characters dsnt leav mch rm 2 actuly wrt) could be much more productively spent actually writing. Like in my blog, or my novel (oh yes, I WILL complete it).

5)     Seeing Dave Matthews w/Tim Reynolds in concert. Yes, this is on my new years resolution list.  Why? It’s been nearly 20 years since I’ve had a real concert EXPERIENCE.  I’m craving one again, and from everything I’ve read, Dave will pull through for me.  I wasn't more than a sometimes fan of Dave Matthews until about two years ago when I stumbled upon his & Tim Reynolds’ Live at Radio City video on the home theatre display with my daughter in an unnamed big box store.  We sat & watched, entranced.  What a performer! Been a big fan ever since (and even got Adam hooked too). Its time to experience it in person!
 

So there you have it:  Get healthier, parent better, read more, write more, and see a good show.  That shouldn’t be too hard, right?  I’m up for the challenge! Who’s with me? I’d love to hear your resolutions – please share your comments!