For Release December 31, 2006

Time For Another Round of Resolutions

AGRI-VIEWS

by Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent

It's the end of one year and as we get ready to head into another year, already, it's time to make some resolutions. Do I achieve all the resolutions I set from one year to another? Of course not! But setting resolutions gives us a goal. So let's see what resolutions might be fitting for 2007!

I resolve to consume fewer empty calories and expend more calories on a daily basis. Empty calories are the ones that everybody enjoys eating and drinking, but that do us very little good. They are often strongly tied to sugar! Which explains their desirability! What all of you have to do is to stop me from grabbing that extra donut or cookie, or even that first donut or cookie! Then if I can manage to lose just one pound a month through all of 2007, I'll be over halfway to my goal.

I resolve to always return my shopping cart to the "cart corral". Additionally, I will always try to park near a runaway shopping cart and take it back to the corral on my way to the store. I don't know how those carts keep getting out of hand, but I always seem to see an amazing number of them just running loose through the parking lot. Taking that fifteen seconds to return one to where it belongs will probably also help with part of resolution #1; expend more calories on a daily basis.

I resolve to do one unnecessary nice thing every day. There are lots of times during the day that we are nice, because we have to be or we are expected to be. But what about the times that no one is expecting you to be nice? Instead of just walking out the door of the store to my car, I can pause two seconds and hold the door for the person coming or going right behind me. It always catches me off guard when someone does that for me and it always makes me feel special. So why not try to make one person feel special every day?

I resolve to make my environmental foot print even smaller. The world is like a big bowl of gelatin. Every time we do anything, we set the whole bowl to jiggling. If we jiggle the bowl too much, we've got a problem! So we need to challenge ourselves to every year live more sustainably than last year. We need to use less energy, we need to recycle more, we need to look at buying a more energy efficient vehicle every time we trade. We have to learn to jiggle the bowl less, and I'm willing to do my part!

I resolve to learn one new skill during 2007. I'm a firm believer in life long learning as a key to keeping the brain functioning and life exciting. Maybe I'll finally take time to start learning a second language. Perhaps I'll learn to use a new computer program, or learn to do more with a program that I already have. Maybe I'll take an art class or tackle the challenge of making a really good crème brûlée. Just something, so that by the end of 2007, I can say, "This year, I learned how to ....!"

Finally, I resolve to learn even more about this part of Kansas. I've now lived here for 25 years, and yet every day it seems that I learn something new about the area. It may be an interesting road I haven't been down before, a new place to go birdwatching or a new little museum or art gallery that I haven't happened upon before. Life is an adventure, not a race. And every year just gives us more little puzzles and challenges that can help us learn more about ourselves and our world! Happy New Year everyone!

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