Things Will Go Wrong > New Years Resolutions

It's a new year and with it comes all of those well intended, never really going to happen, New Year's resolutions. Even just the word "resolution" makes the slacker in me sweat.

Let's not be too hard on ourselves.  Sure, we all have good intentions of waking up at 5am to "Just Dance" ourselves into a sweaty, calorie killing, lather (5am is the only hour when there are no witnesses to see your special brand of 'dancing'); and trying our darnedest to not use that high decibel "voice" with the kids. You know which one I'm talking about... 

No, this year we WILL NOT yell at the kids and hubby like a boot camp sergeant. We WILL NOT cave and go through the Starbucks drive thru the same amount of times we go thru our own driveway. We WILL use the elliptical at home for more than just a clothes drying rack. Hoorah!!

Until...we don't. But don't be too hard on yourselves ladies. I've got one New Years resolution habit that is so easy even I, the official resolution flunkee, could stick with it!

Take a look at my 2012 Smash Jar:

What? Not impressed? Wait till you hear what goes in it!

I'm not a scrapbooker and I'm terrible about remembering to bring the camera everywhere, so I usually rely on good Miss. Memory for recalling my major life moments. Let's just say she's not too reliable these days, and my kids LOVE it when I tell them funny things they did when they were little - when I can remember them! This year I wanted to find a way to record all the funny and great things that happen daily around here, so I decided to use this jar as a easy, no stress, way to capture  2012 without relying on my feeble mind.

Remember those "smash books" you had from junior high, where you would jot down all the funny and cringe - worthy moments from your overly dramatic life? Or your friends would pass it around and add their equally overly dramatic comments? Well this jar is kind of the same with out all the tears, hormones, and OMG's. This jar is your, "I got to remember this", super convenient, easy to do, memory keeper for the year.

Still not impressed? Here's how it works. So lets say your son tells you that he will never love anyone more than you. Aww. Grab a scrap of paper, write it down with the date, and throw it in your super duper jar. Or, your son tells you that you should probably check to see if the back of your pants are dirty, because he saw dad trying to grab something off of your butt...put that in the jar. Or, you watch your son high five your other son after he taught him to do his very first basketball lay up. Jot it down, throw it in the jar.

Are you catching on? At the end of next year dump out all your little scraps of paper and read all those great little moments that you would have otherwise forgotten. There are a million things you could do with your lovely memory scraps, like glue the little pieces of paper into a journal, or turn them into a book and add in some pics at the end of each year.

You can even get your kids in on it. Just be sure to place your jar some place were it's easy for everyone to drop a note in.

Happy jotting! I'm off to spend my kids college money on a Starbucks tall caramel latte.

~Angela