April Resolutions

Today is more of a New Year's Day for me than any of the real ones noted on various calendars.  Spring is most definitively here.  The sun is shining, I don't need a jacket outside, the daffodils are straining to bloom, and the red-bellied woodpeckers are pounding away throughout the neighborhood.

As I look at the chaos of my house, my work, and my mental and physical state, I wonder that I have time to even consider the chaos of the world.  The combination of winter and my stepmother's illness, both of which began for real during the dreary days of November, have taken their toll. 

Herewith, then, the month of April:

1.  Clean up the downstairs.  REALLY clean it.  Clear out cupboards and throw things away.  Wash windows and woodwork.  Wash and polish floors.  

2. Clean up Son No. 2's room -- the easy one.  He cleaned out all the trash over winter break.  I just need to wash walls and floors and windows and furniture.  Since my boys' rooms are on the third floor and the boys themselves are off at college, their space has been an easy one to ignore.  

3.  Keep up with our financial life.  I've done a pretty good job of setting up a system and a budget, and the taxes have been done for weeks.  Now I just need to keep on top of everything.  I'm trying to be much more attentive to daily spending and KEEP OUT OF BOOKSTORES.   

4.  I have to write a paper on St. Peter's Dome for my Michelangelo class.  I expect to enjoy that if I ever get started.  It's due in 29 days and I blithely missed the deadline for turning in a thesis and bibliography.   

5.  Start exploring some options that I might want to pursue in the future.  With three children in college as of five months from now, my options are actually a teeny bit on the limited side.  But today I am having lunch with a friend who has asked me to write a recommendation for her for seminary, and the intense and overarching envy that has taken hold of me should, uh, tell me something.  

6.  Start to deal with household projects.  Call the plumber about that toilet pipe that leaked from the second floor to the basement.  Start to learn about tin ceilings -- my husband's optimistic idea for the sunroom.  If it's going to be done, it has to be done in the summer -- it's too damn cold in there in the winter to pull the ceiling down.  Even if the ceiling mostly consists of temporary and untaped patches of drywall from the times it has pulled itself down all on its own happy little initiative.  Start to learn about driveways.  We got cited and ordered to replace ours two years ago.  We get three years, but we received an extremely testy missive from the city last fall noting that we had done -- can you believe this?  -- NOTHING.   Such pathetic citizens we are.  Hey, we all voted Democratic and in favor of gay marriage.  How much public responsibility can one family handle?   

7. Walk EVERY day, EVERY SINGLE day, and lose 7.5 pounds.  (Oh, yeah.  Eat less, too.)  

Well, that's my month in advance.  The calendar is from the famous illuminated manuscript, John of Berry's Petites Heures.  See here:  http://www.bnf.fr/enluminures/manuscrits/aman9.htm