Snow and Resolutions

I'm starting to see what it's like to live in the northeast again. Western Kansas was cold in the winter, with nasty wind chills...the wind always blows there. But it was dry, so there was little precipitation of any kind. New Hampshire doesn't have much wind, but there's a LOT of rain and snow. We got about four inches this week over the space of two storms, and I just love it. Above is a picture from the most recent storm. I suppose the novelty will wear off, especially the "novelty" of having to put on boots and scrape my car every time I leave the house. But for now, it's an wintry fairyland and I'm enchanted.

Have all of you made your New Year's resolutions? Are they the same ones you always make? I find I tend to make the same ones every year, and the reason is because I never keep them, so I start over in January. I'll eat better, I'll exercise more, I'll be kind to everyone and won't lose my temper. Sound familiar?

This year, I'm doing something different. One of the things that distresses me in life is having panic attacks. They come on like gangbusters with all the Kansas thunderstorms that can morph into tornadoes, so I'm endlessly thankful to have moved to a tornado-less spot. The others--flying, hospitals, IVs/needles, driving in city traffic, getting lost while driving in city traffic--are still here and have to be dealt with on occasion. I can avoid flying, but I can't avoid surgery. In fact, I have to have some rather nasty shoulder surgery in two weeks.

So, my resolution this year is to try to tell myself, when panic looms, that at least it's not a life-threatening situation. (And to try to forget that sometimes, things like airplanes, hospitals and city traffic CAN be life-threatening.) The odds are with me that I'll survive all these things, and if I can just convince myself of that up front, I'll eliminate a LOT of stress.

Are you making any new resolutions this year? What are they?