New Year's Eve and keeping hope alive

New Year’s Eve promises so much—a fresh start, a blank slate, a chance to look at the tangled mess of our lives and say, “This year, I’ll get it together. No, really.”

But before we pop the champagne and make resolutions we have no intention of keeping, let’s pause a moment to honor the often unappreciated beauty of a quiet New Year’s Eve, where glitter and champagne are optional.

We’ve all been there. Midnight strikes, and suddenly, you’re promising to quit carbs, learn French and train for a marathon. It feels exhilarating in the moment, but then reality smacks you in the face and calls you Sally. And through your champagne haze you remember croissants are delicious, French is exhausting, and running hurts.

But this annual exercise of overpromise is actually an act of hope. A reminder we can still believe in the power of change.

Maybe it’s naive. Maybe it’s human. Maybe it’s the champagne talking.

As in years past, the wife and I will definitely not be spending New Year’s Eve out on the town. We’ll have an early-ish dinner at a restaurant we love in Newport Beach, and be back home with plenty of time to spare before the ball drops. Because for us, the true magic of NYE is staying in and not participating in the demolition derby that happens on the roads one minute after midnight.

Also, neither of us look good in gold party hats.

While we try to remain optimistic, sadly we face challenges guaranteed to wreak havoc in the coming year. Cadet Bone Spurs incoming administration—back for a sequel no one wanted but we’re all forced to watch—feels like a cruel cosmic joke.

But New Year’s isn’t just about personal resolutions. It’s about collective resolve. Whether you’re marching, organizing, donating, or simply staying informed, every action matters. Progress is messy, slow, and sometimes heartbreakingly incomplete. But always worth fighting for.

So let’s take the spirit of New Year’s Eve—the hope, defiance and determination to do better—and channel it into something bigger than ourselves.

Because while resolutions come and go, resistance is evergreen.

Here’s to a New Year filled with small victories, big dreams, and the strength to face whatever comes our way.

Happy New Year.

The 12th of never

As I've said many times here, I'm the least disciplined writer you know. I'm not proud, but I am consistent. To that end, you'll be glad to know that finely honed, well practiced lack of discipline carries over into many other areas of my life as well.

Here's the thing: I had big plans coming into 2018. A whole new me in almost every aspect. Extreme makeover, Jeff edition. While I didn't voice my ambitious plans to a lot of people, I did make a list for myself. Reviewing that list now, it really begs the question— is it really breaking a resolution if you never started it?

In what seems like a nanosecond, I suddenly find myself halfway through January, and I'm already checking things off my evil twin list.

Not walking every day. Check.

Not working out. Check.

Not riding my bike. Check.

Still carrying on a torrid love affair with bread. Check.

Still cheating on bread with sugar. Check.

But it's not just the personal improvement goals and deadlines I'm not accomplishing. I'm not accomplishing so much more than that. In fact, I can not accomplish more in a day than most people can't do in a month.

Simple things like reorganizing my dresser drawers so they're not all "that drawer."

Making the bed every day, although the 90 lb. German Shepherd laying on it doesn't make it any easier.

Cleaning out the garage.

Emptying the boxes from the remodel still in the garage.

Reorganizing shelf space in the garage.

Putting a window in the garage.

Putting up the wi-fi extender in the garage.

Clearly the garage is a thorn in my side, and perhaps my inability to get to it and put it in order represents a more significant issue that needs to be dealt with.

Which begs a different question: Who asked you?

Anyway, it doesn't take a stable genius to see the pattern of avoidance and denial, two qualities I'm far more comfortable with than I should be.

I don't want you to get the wrong idea, although it may be too late for that. This may ruin my underachiever reputation, but since the new year I actually did manage to get two new pair of glasses, a haircut and the flu. So there's that.

But when it comes to my New Year's list, I'm going to file it all under better late than never, and not wait another year before I think about addressing all those chores and promises. I'm going to pull myself up by my own bootstraps, if I can find them in the garage, and take care of them in the most timely way I know how.

Tomorrow.

Christmas past

As you may know if you follow this blog, and if you do maybe it's time to stop reading and seek gainful employment, we've recently finished a major kitchen remodel. The kind that makes me wonder how we lived with the old, small, inefficient kitchen so long. The kind that makes me wonder how many lifetimes I'll need to pay for it.

In the video above you can see the new peninsula we added. Well, you'd see it if it weren't covered with the mélange of Christmas ornaments that were carefully taken off the tree, and are now waiting to be boxed up and shoved back on the top shelf of the garage where they'll live until next year, neighbor to the Easter, Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations.

It's a lot of ornaments. But it was a big tree.

As I've written about here, I have mixed feelings about packing up the holiday. I like the joy and spirit of the season, but then I can only take so much joy and spirit. It's a short ride from "Merry Christmas" to "Bah-humbug."

The good news is every time this ritual is officially over, I feel like the slate is clean once again and I can start the new year in earnest, breaking resolutions then promising to start them for real the following week.

The beauty of it is I only have to do this fifty times. Then it's Christmas all over again.

The finish line. Again.

Five years ago, I put up this post about my run up to the new year.

Sad to say it's a relevant now as it was then.

Sure, I could've thought up a brand new post to start the new year off. But then I would've had to put down my bagel with cream cheese and lox, cookies, egg quiche and homemade waffles.

Of course I wasn't eating them all at once. But every time it occurred to me to get a post up, I did seem to have something in my hands on the way to my mouth.

Anyway, tomorrow or the day after I'll start bringing the funny with brand new posts again. In the meantime, please to enjoy this gem one more time.

I'm going to get dessert.

I do it every year. The resolution about losing weight. And before the clock strikes midnight on New Year's, I also do something else every year.

I pack it away like Oprah in a cupcake factory.

I'm not proud. I'm not hungry either.

It's just that I know with the resolution made and the food deadline looming, I want to make sure and stuff my face while I still can.

Without the least bit of the restraint or will-power I've resolved to exhibit in the new year, the run up to midnight is filled with cramming down every last bit of sugar-filled, cholesterol-causing, artery-clogging, waist-growing, clothes-tightening, mirror-avoiding food I can possibly get my hands and mouth on.

I'm like a runaway train. Except my train is all dining cars.

I know what you're thinking - it can't possibly be that bad. The reason I know is because that's what I thought too. Right up until I got on the scale this morning.

Truth be told, it's not quite as dire and desperate as I've made it sound. And even if it were, it's a new year and I'm on it.

After all, I made a resolution. What could possibly go wrong?