SingleWorkingMama

And not writing, writing, writing. I miss it!

Anyhow, I thought I’d post this little video I took of my son. Don’t you wish you could laugh so hard about something as simple as a teddy bear with a silly voice and jerky movements?

…Or a tumbling rock, in our case.

This year’s most exciting (yet painful in that it requires effort and patience) gift (I forgot to mention it in my Santa Brought More to Dad’s House post.) was a rock tumbler.

All summer, when we’d hit the beach, Drue picked up interesting rocks and beach glass. Santa was paying attention, I guess.

This thing is bound to yield a selection (6-10) of gem-like treasures that we can craft into keychains, earrings, keychains, keychains and keychains, but it is louder than I could have predicted. We’re in the middle of the second cycle (14 days) and I swear, this thing gets louder each day. I keep moving it further and further away from the main living area of our house. It is now in a distant corner of the basement, and I can still hear it.

One of my friends at work offered up the delightful (yet wrong) idea of swapping the mid-cycle rocks for museum gift shop stones while the kids are in bed. I had to laugh, especially since everyone is dying to see how this little experiment affects my electric bill.

In two weeks, when this thing is done, I will post photographs of our finished products!

I have been thinking long and hard about what my resolutions for 2009 will be. I started thinking back to resolutions of years past, and realized that every year mine have been very restrictive.

Eat less, shop less, exercise more (okay, that isn’t a “less,” I guess) – but the gist of it is that resolutions are almost always presented with some negative, looming sense of radical change that almost inevitably leads to failure.

Lately, I have been focusing on changing my life for the better. This is the theme I am going with in terms of my goals for 2009. My primary goal is to live a good life, so why not resolve to add more happiness to my life instead of merely stripping myself of things I like?

One of my favorite phrases of late is “let’s not try to boil the ocean.” My method for self-improvement is definitely going to come in the form of tiny, regular additions to my life that I will take note of and enjoy as I go.

Things I plan to add more of:

Interesting, delicious and healthy foods (You get it. I will not do anything ridiculous like vowing to eliminate pizza.)

Time with people who care about me too

Quality time with my kids and family (Art, books, games, interesting discussion)

Art and photography projects of my own

Learning

This should make New Year’s resolutions much more achievable, don’t you think? What do you want more of in 2009?