The New Year

So I know I am a bit late here on the posting the New Years Resolutions thing but I thought that if still posted it here than somehow cyberspace (and not just my little red Franklin Planner) would keep me true to my resolutions.

This year opposed to in year's past I felt that it was important to develop life changing resolutions. I mean most of the time people come up with things that are good for the moment but aren't really life changing things. So with that in mind I read the Time magazine People of the Year edition right before New Year's and decided that this year was going to be different. I was actually going to do three things that were going to be life changing developments for me.

First:
1) I have decided to regain my healthy living lifestyle. That means no fast food, no crap going into my system. Now this has already been hard going to the bar and having one drink if that. It is hard getting up in the morning and getting to the gym on time before work but I look at it this way...I have two options right now while I am 26. I can live a healthy life and give myself the best chance at staying alive past 50 or I can just eat shit and gain 20 and be totally disgusting. I choose A! I just watched my dad pass away because he didn't do this and I won't let it happen to me.

Second:
2)I have decided to take a mission trip to Africa and travel more this year. I realized a couple of weeks ago that I hadn't been out of the country in ages and for that matter I hadn't been anywhere outside of the midwest since last spring. So I am going to go and visit my friends across the country this year. I am going to see those ballparks I talked about in my Christmas news letter because though I have no money and will never have a savings account with more than 100 bucks in it at least I will have great memories with the ones I love. And as for going to Africa...it is about damn time I stop talking about Americans doing something for the rest of the world and actually do it myself.

Last:
3) Being inspired by my friend Jenny I have decided to read 20 books this year. I have so many great books sitting on these wonderful shelves that Justin built me in our house that haven't been read. They are just there right now to make me feel like an elitest, but I thought this year I would actually become an elitest and read them. So I leave you with the current list of selections. Some have already been read but I feel like reading them again, others I have never touched. Suggestions are of course always welcome and I will give updates as the year goes along.

1) A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
(How can you not want to read this book a million times?? It is about time someone actually gave a real history lesson)

2) Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
3) Watching Baseball by Jerry Remy
(It's almost that time of year again...better start getting ready!)

4) War of the Worlds by HG Wells
5) Madam President by Eleanor Clift
6) Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
7) 1776 by David McCullough
8) Three Nights in August by Buzz Bissinger
9) One Day at Fenway by Steve Kettmann
(I am hoping to get to this book at about the same time I am going to Fenway!)

10) Don't Think Like an Elephant by George Lakoff
11) Nickel & Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
(Had to re-read this one in order to appreciate her new one. By far one of the best books I have read.)

12) Bait & Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich
13) I am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe
14) Imperial America by Gore Vidal
(My favorite author...also check out Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace and Dreaming War)

15) Hegemony or Survival by Noam Chomsky
16) The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
17) The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
(I am finally giving in and reading it like the rest of the world...trying to before the movie comes out and ruins it.)

18) On Bullshit by Harry Frankfurt
(One of the best rhetoric books I have read.)

19) Women Who Make the World Worse by Kate O'Brien
(Just couldn't pass up reading some conservative full of shit women...Can't wait till some man takes her job.)

20) Are Men Necessary by Maureen Dowd
(Reading it to get over #19)