Behind The Bur: Raining in the New Year

I woke up this almost too late to call it morning morning to the sound of pouring rain and the smell of sausage and eggs being cooked up in the kitchen. It was a somewhat strange start to a new year and the traditional new years diet I'll admit, but everything today is a sign of hope to me. Sausage and eggs, the hope that I can have balance in my life. That I can still enjoy food but no longer see all the extra pounds when I look in the mirror. Rain, to wash away 2010 with all of it's heartaches and struggles and leave a rainbow to start the new year off with hope and happiness.

2010 was the year of learning to live freely. When I look back on all that has happened and all that has not, the more I feel that 2010 was all about me learning to let go of control. Thinking about 2010 and all of its mistakes and hardships has gotten me thinking about 2011. I want to be more purposeful in my life. I want to change the way I think and the way I live. If 2010 was about letting go of things I shouldn't be holding on to, then I want 2011 to be about all the things I should be holding onto tightly.

I took voice lessons at Samford University what seems like a lifetime ago. I was in Paul Richardson's studio, who just so happens to be an excellent professor and, I would say, one of the very best I have had the pleasure of learning from. One thing that he taught me about singing was that rather than focusing on the million things you should not be doing, just focus on a few things that you want to do right. It isn't possible to do both. If you are busy doing the right things, there will be no room for the wrong things.

A few years later, I had a physics professor say something very similar. It was in regard to Lent. He said, rather than give something up that you shouldn't be doing, try to do something good instead. Not that giving up TV or chocolate or cussing is a bad thing, just that it only really benefits you. Why not do something that will also be good for others?

I can be pretty dense, but when I get the same advice in different situations from different people I respect, I try to take it.

So when I started my list of new years resolutions like this

Eat less.

Weigh less.

Watch less TV.

Complain less.

I started to realize that my new year was going to be filled to the brim with less instead of more. So I started again.

Eat more fruits and vegetables.

Exercise consistently.

Replace TV time with activity.

Listen more.

Say more positive things.

Run the princess half marathon.