It’s the beginning of 2010, and I’ve gotta set my goals! Last year I gave up buying plastic water bottles, and it worked! I recommend it to everyone. We saved lots of money, and got attached to our water bottles and filtering system. It works just fine, and now we’ve got more room in the refrigerator for BEER! ☺

So here are the resolutions:

• More writing: journal every day, on paper. Some stuff didn’t get recorded last year because I didn’t want to share it with the world. So I need to organize my thoughts on paper first.
• More exercise: get in that gym, at least twice a week.
• More travel: including within DC. There are some great exhibits and museums that I need to see. Concerts and shows, too!
• Home improvement: continue to green my lifestyle, purge the junk and organize the good stuff.
• Taco night on Mondays: to simplify menu planning and because we like tacos. ☺

Wish me luck, and I wish you luck with your resolutions… if you’ve made them? If you haven’t yet, I hereby give you til the end of January to come up with some. We’ve got 11 months to go, folks. That’s a lot of time to pick something to improve on or have fun with.

Most importantly,

★  ♪ ♫   Happy New Year! ♪ ♫ ♪ ★

We lost some big names in entertainment this year, I just wanted the chance to say one last goodbye to some of my favorites.

• Actor Patrick Swayze, 57 – I really enjoyed Dirty Dancing and many more of his movies.
• Director John Hughes, 59 – His films were some of the first that I rented from video stores and watched over and over again.
• Actress Farrah Fawcett, 62 – What a courageous documentary she made at the end of her life.
• Actor Dom DeLuise, 75 – Always made me laugh.
• Actor Ricardo Montalban, 88 – I still want to visit Fantasy Island.
• George Michael, sports broadcaster, 70 – I watched his ‘Sports Machine’ show for years in DC.
• Vic Chesnutt, singer/songwriter, 45 – Just an amazing talent.
• Actress Brittany Murphy, 32 – I loved her voice work for King of the Hill.
• Ed McMahon, 86 – I’ll remember him from Star Search, way before American Idol.
• Pitchman Billy Mays, 50 – He could sell me the shoes on my feet, what a guy.
• Walter Cronkite, 92 – Sad to see him go, but that’s the way it is.

There were many more notable deaths, as The New York Times notes in their annual review.