New Year, New You?

Happy New Year everyone. Now that the rush of holiday parties, gifts, family and tons of food has settled in the pit of your gut is over we can all get back to doing what we love best, WRITING!

If you're like me the holidays with family goes overboard. It was bad when my mother was alive. (Please don't take that the wrong way. I would be happy if she was still alive only if she was cancer free, so I am certainly not saying I am glad she's gone). But when she was alive, we began planning Christmas at Thanksgiving. An entire month was dedicated to planning the menu for Christmas dinner. Now that she's gone and I'm in charge, well somewhat. My father holds on to all the things my mother used to do with an iron fist. But I refuse to think of Christmas dinner until the week before the day arrives.

Anyway, as I was saying we still go overboard, and with my husband's family and then Christmas after Christmas with his daughters and their 8 children; yes my husband has 8 grandchildren. (Truly, I'm not old enough yet to be a grandmother). So Christmas usually isn't over until the 30th of December and just in time for New Year's Eve and New Year's day.

Yes, we have 2 family get together's. 1 on New Year's Eve where we all converge at my uncle's with his 6 children, their spouses, children and grandchildren plus my aunt and us, which makes a grand total of 65 in one large room, laughing, loving and eating.

Our festivities will culminate this evening with dinner at my dad's house, along with his sister and brother eating Hoppin' John, Mexican cornbread, sweet potatoes, ham and cole slaw.

I hope you see the pattern here, and I'm sure your holidays also are centered around food and family. Yes, food is the operative word here. My holidays remind me of Mickey's Christmas Carol; the ghost of Christmas present surrounded by so much food it would feed a small country. And, I've gained a few pounds back, (I do not look like the ghost of Christmas present I assure you); no more than 5 pounds have returned and all on my hips.

But am I going to make that silly New Year's resolution to slim down. (I lost fifty pounds last year, all between May and September, and didn't need a resolution to do it). The answer is no. I don't need some diet guru telling me how to change myself to become a new me.

Frankly, I like who I am. I finally have a published book. Thanks for those who've purchased it, and please note I am revising it. As an independent author I write and edit my own work. I don't have a network of friends who help me edit my book. Mainly because no one knows I write erotica. And I like it that way. Please know I am striving in the latest version to remove all errors. Thanks in advance for your patience.

Sorry, I digressed. Let me get back on track. If you believe a new you is needed in your life in this New Year then go for it, but let me just say that for all my venting about spending every waking hour with my family since Thanksgiving, I am blessed to still have them. Do I want them around all the time, NO.

But my family, the things we share are what shapes me. So to think about shedding that part of my life to become a new person is out of the question. With that being said, I guess I am going to make a resolution after all.

My New Year's resolution is to continue being me; to stay focused on my writing using life experiences, my network of friends and family to continue to shape me and my writing. If I lose the last fifty pounds I want to this year, then great. If not, I'll press on to be the woman I've been working towards all my life. I don't plan to give that up just because outside forces think I can be better, or the best I've ever been by changing this and that in my life.

They don't know me, so some expert does not get to decide what's right for me. Keep in mind they don't know you when you're trying to do it their way.

My New Year thought to you is be true to yourself, whatever that may be. Go for your dreams your way.

God Bless.