A Chilly Start to 2011, Resolutions, and Other Intentions

Moving to Denver in mid-November, we were expecting to be cold.  But we were lulled into a sense of warmth by the unseasonable weather - 50s, 60s and sometimes even 70s - just sweater weather at best and no snow.   The sun shown down upon us, and we were delighted.  

Until this week.  Our first out of town company arrived in the form of daughter and son-in-law from warm southern California.  The first real snowfall also came, and the temperature was now in single digits.  Cold, by anyone's standards.  The roads were icy and not as well plowed as I would have thought.  Our trip last night to take the southern Californians back to the airport was a slide on ice, especially with our not-all-weather-tired, not-all-wheel-drive Atlanta automobile.  Suddenly, why I really hated winter when we lived in Connecticut years ago came flooding back to me.  It's just so bleak.

We all sat silent, jaws clenched and white-knuckled, as we delivered them to the airport so they could get home to the welcoming paws of their English bulldog, The Baroness, before the new year arrived.  Wrong.  As I write this around noon on New Year's Day, they still sit in the Denver airport, about 20 hours later, as American Airlines tortures them with postponing their flight from last night, hour by hour.  So I wonder if they will ever visit us again - I can't blame them if they don't, and it certainly won't be in the winter if they do.

So, enough complaining and on with the business of the new year.  I read an article yesterday about not making "resolutions" which sound somewhat negative and making a list of "intentions" instead.  Personally, I find the term "intentions" just too iffy, even if it more accurately describes my annual to-do list that I call new year's resolutions.  I always have the same 2 resolutions every single year:  

1.  Lose weight 

2.  Have more fun

I never seem to accomplish the first resolution to my satisfaction (you would think that I could figure this one out but, alas, I don't seem able to), and as to the second, I thoroughly believe that one can never have too much fun, so "more fun" is an eternally good goal that I will continue to have.

To my two eternal resolutions/intentions, I add some other personal ones this year. They include selling our Atlanta house that sits empty and forlorn, waiting for loving occupants, and creating a new life for myself in our new home in Denver.   I have much to be thankful for, the foremost being health and a wonderful family, and I will never take those things for granted.  

For my friends and loved ones, I have resolutions and intentions as well:  that you all have health and happiness in 2011 as we all embark on a new year full of unknowns.