I don’t make resolutions.

Well, actually that is a lie.

I do.

Sort of.

I make annual promises to myself around the first of the year and usually by the end of the first week in January I’ve broken all of my promises. Last year I decided that even if I broke promises I’d re-make them as soon as I broke them and do this all year and hopefully I’d be a better person by December 31, 2011.

Well, that didn’t work either. I was the same person on December 31, 2011 as I was on December 31, 2010.

This year I decided to set 12 goals for myself — one for each month of the year (which ends in 12 — how cute is that?). My plan was to concentrate on one thing each month — trying to make it a habit.

I started out with the goal of walking at least a mile a day.

On January 1, just after my morning coffee I put on my walking shoes, tied my hair back in a ponytail holder, put on my coat and, according to my smartphone application, walked 1.3 miles.

On January 2, just before dark I put on my walking shoes, tied my hair back in a ponytail holder, put on my heavy down coat and, according to my smartphone application, walked 1 mile.

[Please note that I walked the exact same route. Interesting that on 1-1-2021 it was .3 miles longer than on 1-2-2012.]

On January 3 I suggested we go out for dinner. We walked from the parking lot to the restaurant to the movie theater and back to the parking lot. I told myself that had to be a mile. It according to Google Maps it really was less than half a mile.

On January 4 I didn’t leave the house. (that was the day the furnace quit and the temperature outside did’t get out of the low 20s)

On January 5 Clare and I went to the mall. We may or may not have walked a mile.

Today I plan on walking to the Bethesda Community Store to buy some fish for dinner. Maybe I will take the long way. I doubt it will be a mile.

Yeah, I don’t make resolutions…