My New Year's Resolutions

So I sat and thought about it this morning, and tried to come up with some interesting goals for myself. Things that would really make me stretch and grow and stuff. Then I decided that was lame, and it would be a lot more fun to create some resolutions for other people. So without further ado, here are some resolutions I have created for my family, and I hereby resolve to watch and see if they accomplish them.

HUSBAND:
1. Resolve to bring your wife Dove chocolate at least once a month. Preferably twelve times.
2. Resolve to create an awesome color-coded excel program that will track Madeline's vital statistics, such as number of times she spills juice on a newly mopped floor and average length of her self-imposed timeouts.
3. Resolve to conquer the world through hypnosis.
4. Resolve to stop waking your wife in the middle of the night, and then not remembering it in the morning. Emergencies only.
5. Resolve to actually watch something on you big screen television besides football. (March Madness qualifies.
6. Resolve to use subtle Harry Potter references at least twice a week.
7. Resolve to use your new search optimization skills to make the top google search results for "baloney" your facebook account, work website, and this blog, in that order.
8. Resolve to get in your antsy cleaning mode at least once a week, or whenever your wife is feeling particularly lazy.
9. Resolve to eat more green beans. We won't push the peas thing.
10. Resolve to not get any concussions. Ever.

DAUGHTER:
1. Resolve to start waking up at nine. And going to sleep at seven.
2. Resolve to use your new cleaning supplies on mom's kitchen floor daily. It's all your mess anyway.
3. Resolve to eat more chicken. Kids are supposed to like chicken.
4. Resolve to make "Yes" your new favorite word.
5. Resolve to create a secret club in nursery, with yourself as president, and use it to extra treats at snack time.
6. Resolve to quit begging food off of other people in sacrament meeting and just eat your own dratted goldfish.
7. Resolve to use your charming smile and good looks to get into a prestigious preschool, so that you might be in a position to care for your parents financially in their old age.
8. Resolve to make friends with someone besides your uncle Bryce, so that you won't shout his name over and over every time we get into the car.
9. Resolve to get fatter so all of your pants will fit.
10. Resolve to finish all the books you've started this year, such as Doctrines of Faith, Plato's Discourses, and the Bible. And read them this time, instead of tearing out the pages.

And thus concludes our grand plans for this year. Rest assured that we will be working tirelessly to make these resolutions fruitful. Or someone will, and I'll be sleeping. May you all have a very happy New Year. See you on the flip side.

The New Year Is Upon Us

Oh goodness. It is almost the end of the year. Being the brilliant person I am, I just realized this today. I don't like it. Mostly because I don't want it to be 2010. I can't handle a new decade right now. And 2010 is so awkward. It's the date they put in sic-fi movies when they want to put in hovering cars and robots and invading aliens. So we can't live in 2010. Not to mention I have no idea what to call it. I've had the same problem for the past ten years, but I cheated and always talked about the beginning of the century or the Millennium instead of the 0's or something else stupid sounding. But now I need a way to distinguish this decade from the last one, and I'm fresh out of ideas. Why can't we live in the nineties again?

I also don't want a new year to be here because I'm supposed to make up New Year's Resolutions. And I'm really bad at resolutions. I hate making them because I feel it's futile and over optimistic to try and make more than one or two changes at the same time. My habits are very resistant to change. Last year I cheated and made resolutions that weren't really resolutions, but rather affirmations of my lifestyle. That worked pretty well. But alas, it's not all that clever doing it two years in a row. So I'll have to come up with some other witty way to seem cool and really not do anything at all. I'll let you know how that lofty goal goes. Until then, I'm going to go enjoy the remaining time I have in a nice normal year with no home DNA testing, hover boards, or Big Brother computers.

No, we didn't get a new maid. Why do you ask?

So I've noticed a trend among Madeline's Christmas presents. Among other things, the last few days she's been enjoying:

-A new vacuum
-A deluxe cleaning set (mop, broom, bucket, gloves, sponges, etc.)
-A new kitchen
-A new baby stroller
-New princess dressups
-New cell phone

Seeing the common link? That's right. We're brainwashing our daughter to be the perfect Mormon housewife. Now Madeline's daily schedule is full of fun and excitement. She dresses up her baby doll, puts it in the stroller, and drags her around as she does her chores, which include whipping up culinary masterpieces and making the house shine spotlessly, all while chatting away on her phone. And after a long day of hard work (in high heels, I might add), she gets gussied up in her princess dress, jewelry and crown, and waits patiently (or not so patiently) to greet the man of the house as he comes home from his daily labors. I'm expecting the Feminist Club of America to report me for child abuse any day now. But I'm okay with that, because Madeline certainly didn't get all these girlie tendencies from yours truly. And I'm quite happy to abdicate these responsibilities to the rising generation. I love Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Wow. Are you tired? I'm tired.

Christmas will do that to you, I guess. I could now regale you with a minute by minute replay of our day, and a breakdown of every gift we got and gave. Complete with pictures of feasting, revelry, and aforementioned gifts. But this is not that kind of blog. So I will only tell you about one. Alas, there is a story first. Did you really think I would break my newly instituted short blog rule just for Christmas? Here is the story:

Once upon a time I got pregnant. This was a happy thing, but, unfortunately, it caused my once delicate fingers to swell to immense proportions. As a result, I was forced to remove my beloved wedding ring and confine it to a box for the duration. Fast forward to a few months after our little mischief maker joined our ranks. I had lost some weight, and hoped my fingers had too. I retrieved my ring and despite the fact that it was still a bit tight, was determined to resume wearing it, lest any single men felt tempted to flirt with an overweight woman with a newborn.

Then one day, I realized that I was once again not wearing my ring. And I couldn't remember when I took it off. I felt sure I must have put it somewhere for safekeeping until it fit better. A frantic search of the obvious places yielded nothing. I thought I must have taken it off and put it in a pocket, a purse, or a bag. I wondered if I put it on a counter or sink and forgot to put it back on. But after many days of thorough searching in every box and cranny, there was still nothing. If you have ever lost your wedding ring, you will probably understand that there was a lot of tears. And guilt. And a lot of other not so pleasant feelings and sadness and what have you. It became a painful subject, naturally.

Two more moves followed my months of searching, and each time I looked through every box and drawer as we packed and unpacked. It was pretty clear that whatever safe spot I had chosen to hide my ring was a very secure location, in which the ring would remain until the Millennium. So I resigned myself to feeling stupid.

But.

My lovely husband knew I felt stupid. And sad. And guilty. And that I really wanted something to wear on my finger to show I did love him, even if I'm bad at keeping track of jewelry. So the blessed man got me a new ring for Christmas. A beautiful ring. Much less expensive than the first, which is practical, but let me tell you, just as priceless, if not more so. Because this ring is not just a symbol of our eternal commitment to be together, but our eternal commitment to overlook flaws like losing very important things and being supportive and giving your spouse another chance to do things right. Basically, a symbol of our imperfect selves trying to do better together. And reminding me it's the person who took the time to pick out a ring for you, not the ring itself. So I'm feeling pretty happy at the moment. And pretty unapologetic that this post is kind of sappy and not so sarcastic. Because sometimes you don't feel sarcastic, you feel happy. And sappy.

I think I was too caught up in the Christmas spirit.

It is Christmas Eve, and as promised, here I am not sleeping. This is, however, more due to Madeline not sleeping than my excitement. Just thought I should note that.

In other news, I had a strange life experience last night. We watched the Poinsettia Bowl, and I found myself rooting for the Utes. That's right, the Utes. The team in red. Our Arch Nemesis. And even enjoying that they were totally creaming the other guy. It was like living in a strange, parallel universe. But I couldn't help it, I swear. Hatred of the BCS and a desire to support our conference drove me to it. I promise I am now back on the band wagon, and such a thing shall never happen again. Maybe it's because it's Christmas, so I felt an inkling of holiday spirit staring at the red uniforms. And I must point out, it was only possible in the first place because I knew no matter the outcome, BYU pretty much officially had the better season, having won the Holy War and beat up on our own Pac 10 the night before. I think I am now rambling, trying to rationalize and ease my guilt. Maybe I'll go build a Snow Cougar in my BYU sweatshirt now.

Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I love ya, etc.

I feel like a little kid. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. And I don't know if I'll be able to sleep tonight because I'm so excited. Tomorrow there will be cookies (Maple Bells!) and new pajamas and the nativity. My mother will be frantically wrapping presents all afternoon, and having us wrap presents in blank boxes while we try to guess who they're for. We'll have to crack the Christmas code my dad writes on the presents, because he can't just write To Cami or To Jessie. He'll write V4 and L19 and we have to guess what the numbers and letters mean. We'll watch my little brother watch Santa Claus land in random places in Greenland and Cuba on the internet. And if we're lucky, we'll have some random late night Christmas family activity that we won't decide on until tomorrow. Like a midnight movie or family concert around the piano, or, perhaps, a family Rock Band session. And then an argument about what time to wake up and open presents, which after all the drama, will probably be decided mostly by when Madeline wakes up. I love Christmas Eve. It's almost better than Christmas Day.

Maybe it's a cry for attention.

So we did exciting things this weekend. Of which this was the least exciting, but of the most importance to the blogging world. A year or two ago, I purchased some neon pink and black striped tights. Normally I would not buy such a thing, but I had a gift card to an all socks online store, so I said to myself: Live a little. Get the bright striped tights. They look exactly like this:

Unfortunately, I do not own stilettos like that. A tragedy. Anyway, I wanted to wear something Christmasy to church. But I had nothing Christmasy. So instead, I decided to wear my tights. Because I had never worn them before and they were begging for it. I realize, based on that picture, that this might seem highly scandalous. But bear in mind, I was wearing a very plain and not scandalous mid-calf black dress and nice boring black flats. Close toed. So I felt I was within my rights. Jessie had his doubts. I'm pretty sure he would have walked twenty feet in front of me on the way to church, except he was afraid if he did that, I might not cook him dinner for a week. So he endured it and only mentioned once or twice that he felt it would be wise to keep my bright pink tight wearing to a minimum. I told him I was a Christmas elf. Take that, holiday spirit

And speaking of my questionable fashion choices, this weekend we had our annual Lundstrom family Christmas party. And during our ever exciting white elephant exchange, I managed to snag one of these:

That's right. I am now the proud owner of a leopard print Snuggie. Again, not something I would ever buy for myself. But you can bet I'll steal one at a white elephant party. And be proud of myself for doing it. And at the first available opportunity, I'm going to proudly show it off. Go me.

Jessie thinks I'm all of a sudden an "extremist" in fashion. I'll let you be the judge. But hey, one life to live, seize the day, yada yada yada. I'm going to be warm this winter if it it kills me. Or if I have to wear neon stripes and leopard prints to do it.