Resolution 2011

My resolutions for 2011 are in two realms: the food realm and the physical realm.

In the food realm, I want to prepare vegetables at least four times per week. I need a variety of vegetables to keep myself healthy and, due to the lack of a staff, need to prepare them myself. So, each week I shop, I will purchase four different kinds of vegetables in proper quantities (see below) and get them ready to eat throughout the week. I’ve actually been doing this since November and it is going pretty well, though I think four times to week doesn’t happen as often as I think it does.

In addition, I will strive to cook food in quantities that I can eat before it turns and must be thrown out. To do this, I have made a few lists and posted them on the fridge. The first list is “Things to Prepare” where I write down what I have bought that needs to be made into something before it goes bad. I also note the date I bought it, which will spur me into a frenzy of preparation when too much time has passed. I also have a list called “Things to Eat” where I write down what there is to eat and cross it out as I finish it. This will help me keep my eye on when I have forgotten the last bit of Lima beans in the refrigerator. I can then dig them out and eat them before I have to throw it out.

I have a notebook to keep track of what I have prepared this week. This will let me see my progress, track the food I throw out and be able to determine how many pounds of beans I eat in one year. I will also mark my calendar with an F when I do something food related and a V when I cook a vegetable.

In the physical realm, I will do more push ups this year. I enjoy a good push up or two (or ten) and I would like to increase the number of push ups to at least my age, if not more. I’ll start with the number I can currently easily do and add one whenever I feel like can hack it. The time to do them will be before I stretch after doing my jog/walk each morning and I will keep track on my trusty calendar.

Poem for December: For the young who want to.

For the young who want to
by Marge Piercy

This is under copyright. Please see this link: (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=176837)

Reading about Piercy’s life, I feel as though she was born one decade early. She went to college in the 1950s, when it was all about getting your MRS, when she would have clearly fit in much better in the 1960s, when it was all about–well, thanks to innumerable books, movies, history channel specials and general fawning over the times–we all know what it was all about.

So there is a thread of bitterness that runs through her poems which I respect because she earned her bitterness the hard way. No one has ever told me I should have a baby and for that I thank the hard work of Piercy and her contemporaries, and all the feminists who come before them.