New Year's Resolutions

January 1st is officially the first day of the year, the day everyone is supposed to make their "New Year's Resolutions." But if you're a parent like me, you know that life tends to revolve around the academic calendar, not the Gregorian one.

The first day of our "year" is the first day our kids start school. That magical day when we drop them off at the curb, wave at their doomed-looking faces, and drive away.

The last day for us is in June, the day our kids come home skipping and whooping, screaming with joy that school is finally over, so overcome with their own excitement they fail to see us trembling in the corner of the kitchen, holding our martini glasses with shaking hands, groaning with trepidation and fear, wondering how the hell we're going to survive the next couple months.

Summer is a blurred expanse of time, a space of weeks that we know are filled with official-named days, but somehow get lost in our memories as minds slowly melt in front of the TV. It is punctuated by trips, outings, days that loosely translate into Places I Took The Kids To So They Would Stop Driving Me Crazy For A Few Fucking Hours.

We wait and count down the days until that first packet arrives from school, the fat envelope with our names on it, filled with news and regulation updates and emergency forms and class schedules and staff changes and lists of after-school programs. The packet that lets us know the end of summer is near, school is soon to begin. Not a resumption, but a brand new beginning of a brand new year.

And when that day comes, the first day of school, no matter how magical a summer it was, we sigh in relief: finally, we can get back to some sort of routine. A Schedule. Normalcy. Time to plan things ahead, time to be able to do things for ourselves, by ourselves.

My kids start school next week. Summer is drawing to a close, and while this was one of the craziest and best summers this family has seen, well, maybe ever, I'm glad to see it go. It's time to set some goals for myself for the coming year.

So! In the coming year, I resolve to:
1. Lose at least 25 pounds. Yeah, I know, every woman starts out her resolutions list with a weight loss goal. I'm not being unconventional there. The thing is, I am not grossly overweight, I still look okay for my age--but if I lose 25 pounds, I will look, well, better.
2. Write at least 10,000 words a month. This is actually a rather low number: it translates into about 2,500 a week, or 500 a day, and doesn't count Saturdays and Sundays at all. In fact, I know I can beat this number and write way more, but I think it's better to do better and leave your original resolution in the dust than set the bar too high and end up falling short.
3. Continue to surprise Husband in the bedroom. And I do mean sex. We just tried a new technique the other day...he loved it. So did I.

Those are the three big ones, the ones that will take up the most of my time. Got any New Year Resolutions of your own?