Methinks I whine too much.

Had you checked my diary within the last hour, you would have found a whiny entry regarding the loss of past friends.

Then I decided to read the diary entries from that period in my life. (Sometimes there is a benefit to having a diary stretching back nearly seven years.) I remember when I was writing then that I was censoring my life heavily; there were people I was around (and living with) that I didn't want to piss off.

At the same time, those entries are mostly cheerful and upbeat. The only conflict I reported on had to do with my parents and my choices in life and spouse. Somehow in the midst of all that stress and strife, I maintained my happy persona.

Therefore. Methinks I whine too much.

I find it quite cheesy to make New Year's resolutions. Who actually keeps the damn things?? Most people will resolve to lose 20 pounds, and it's the resolution they make every year and do nothing about.

This year, however, I think I am making a resolution.

SO LISTEN UP!

I hereby resolve not to give a flying fuck about people. You like me, great. You hate me, oh well. I refuse to give any more of my time and energy and heart to people who treated me badly in the past. It's in the past; it's over with; let it go.

I hereby resolve to find that happy girl I see in my earlier entries. That's not to say that I'm depressed. Really, I'm not. But as long as I keep busy, I think she'll come back to me.

I also resolve (and this is not related to this entry, not really, anyhoo) to work on my temper. Those of who you know me know I am not a very even-tempered human. But lately I find myself flaring up more often, and that's just not cool. It sucks when you have an argument with your husband over the phone, and your daughter mimics your body language. A little bit humbling, let me tell you.

I guess it's all a bit of the whole "forgive and forget" rigamorole. Only in my book, it's more of "if I can't forgive, I may as well forget."

Words to live by.

It's 3pm (or 1500 for you military types), and I have just spent the last four hours cleaning! YAY!!

Well, not "yay" that I was cleaning. Cleaning sucks. Cleaning ought not to have to be done. But unfortunately, with three animals and a toddler, cleaning does have to be done on occasion.

But because I am lazy, it doesn't get done often enough. And with Kurt being away, I haven't the initiative to get the house cleaned anyhow. No one sees the inside of my house but Grace and me, and I know she doesn't care what the house looks like. She normally makes it look like a tornado has come through.

If you were to walk into my house right this second, you would take one look at the house and say, "What the hell have you been doing for the last four hours? Certainly not cleaning!" But you would be wrong!

See, I had just let stuff pile up for a while. I had piles of books in the bedroom, piles of stuff in the living room, piles of papers in the kitchen, piles of clean dishes in the sink, piles of just stuff, EVERYWHERE. Today I got rid of all those piles. I even went through my hope chest to see if I could get rid of some of the stuff in there. But of course, I couldn't. It's all sentimental stuff.

I found the yearbook from my fifth grade year (1989-90), when I attended a tiny school in northern Illinois. Looking at the cover sort of gave me the willies -- it features exploding fireworks, and the title reads "Shooting Dreams." Very pre-Columbine High School. Back in 1989, you couldn't even fathom a shooting at a school, kids dying and injured. Now it's all too real. Now you have metal detectors at all the entrances. Scary stuff.

I also found something like 10 rolls of film. Yes, folks, film. As in that stuff you used before you had a digital camera. So now I have to get that developed before it degenerates any more. I'm sure they're just goofy photos from fifteen years ago or so, but it'll be fun to see what they're of. I was so bad about taking a load of photos but never getting the rolls developed. Thank goodness for digital photography!

Apparently I am having a New Year's Eve party, which is really what prompted what my good buddy Art calls "cave cleaning." He has the standard size cave; I have the deluxe version, since my house isn't much larger than a two-bedroom apartment. I mentioned to my good friend J yesterday that we ought to get together at my house on New Year's Eve to play games all night, like we did three years ago. Coincidentally, that is also the night I got pregnant with Gracie... not that you wanted to know!!

Don't worry, I won't be getting pregnant this New Year's Eve. That would just be BAD.

Tomorrow J and I are going to town to get some food at Costco, and so I can spend the $50 Penney's gift certificate I got from my in-laws for Christmas.

Here is what I made for my in-laws for Christmas.

Aren't they lovely? They live in Arizona, so they have the whole southwest theme going on. I haven't heard from them regarding my gift to them, so I hope they like them. I had also bought a towel-holder in a southwest theme to go with the towels, but it went AWOL before Christmas. I'll find it when I move and send it to them.

Back to cave-cleaning!