Okay I have made it to February without announcing my New Years Resolutions. I guess it is time.

We never make a big deal big out of new years. We have always stayed at home. We have a simple meal, watch a movie, have a nice bottle of wine and count down the year with each other and the cats. Yes, we have three cats. We usually put funny hats on the cats and take pictures of the cats to post on Facebook. We also make resolutions that we quickly go about breaking because the resolutions are to grandiose.

This year the first resolution is KEEP IT SIMPLE.

Here goes:

1) Keep it simple, by that don’t try to make everything I do into some major event or giant project. Example, we are readying our house to sell so instead of going all Martha Stewart on our house we will clean it and then look with critical eyes at the house and if something needs to be replaced or fixed in order to sell the house we will do it in the greenest way possible and we will recycle everything we take out of the house.

2) Keep it simple, time to begin thinking about what I will be doing in retirement. We are downsizing everything: house, material goods getting rid of the clutter, car, and moving to a more walkable community, but we are not going to stress over the move. Keeping it simple means that everything does not have to be done yesterday, today or even tomorrow. Like we say on UGA GreenWay one step at a time. If we take our time over the next seven months we can do this the right way and we can Keep It Simple. By the way anyone want a futon?

3) Keep it simple, health is very important, but stressing over every new article in every magazine or everything we hear on the news is no way to live. Keep it simple in health means drink more water, eat more vegetables, take more walks, and get more sleep. It is about living a life that is balanced and it is about enjoying life.   Thank goodness I can check in with my county agent on how to eat healthy or how to go online to sign up for Walk Georgia.

4) Keep it simple, reduce consumption to simplify recycling.  If we just cut the amount of stuff we buy we can cut down how much we throw away.  In a lifetime, an average American, someone like you or me will throw away 600 times our  weight and that averages out to around 90,000 pounds of garbage.  If we recycle we can take care of a lot of that garbage but according to Anthropologist Dr. William Rathje, recycling has its limits.  Dr. Rathje says that recycling is critical but the real key to solving our garbage problem is reducing consumption. Putting it another way, Keep it simple buy less stuff then you have less to throw away.