For various reasons, today is my own personal New Year’s Day, and I have a bunch of resolutions for this coming year:

–  I’m going to attend my first highschool reunion, which makes me simultaneously cringe and wonder at the possibilities.  Maybe I’ll reconnect with some cool people.  Maybe.  And hopefully there will be good food.

–  I’m going to step outside my comfort zone (I hate that term, but it does describe the feeling well) and get trained in the “Every Child Ready to Read” program from the American Library Association, with the intention of presenting the program to parents in a series of seminars.

–  I want to, and need to, add some new lesson plans to my repertoire for the Storytime for 2’s and 3’s.  I already have a list of themes that I want to develop, and I’ve already ordered some cool puppets to supplement those themes.  Now to just put in the time to create and develop…

–  I’m looking forward to exploring some additional afterschool programs for the library.  I’ve already got a lot of ideas, so the thought is to schedule these programs and see how they run.  (And no, I’m not going to preview these ideas here first!  But I will let you know how they do…if they’re a success.)

–  I’m looking forward to spending some more time making jewelry.  If only the price of silver would cooperate with my plans and drop to a reasonable level.

–  For this year’s book groups, I’m going to insist that the kids of the older groups trust my judgement and let me pick half of the books (they get to pick and vote on the other half).  I feel like we haven’t been reading enough new fiction lately, and our reading has also been far too fantasy-heavy.  Time for some different genres.

–  And maybe this year will be the year that we “finish” work on our house.  We’re sooooo close, and I really think that we can do it.  It would be nice to transition into maintenance mode from renovation mode.  (And even nicer to have guests over without feeling like we need to apologize for all of our unfinished projects.)

–  Oh, and yeah, I’d like to write a best-selling novel, first in a series, that will enable Jim and me to live in the manner in which we’d like to be accustomed.

Happy New Year!