Happy New Year!

For the past few years (ever since I had my son), New Year's Eve has always been a day when I think about my childhood and wonder if I am as good as a mom to my son as my mother was to me. I've heard the same sentiment from many women - they develop a whole new respect for their mom once they have children. (Disclaimer: I understand that not everyone has this feeling and that not all mothers are the same. My heart goes out to all those who have had troubled childhoods - I am with you on that one, especially those who did not have a parent(s).)

The respect for mom has always been there, but now that I have a child, I realize just how much she did for me and my sister. I don't want to call what she did "sacrifices" because again, I now realize that what we do for our children is not sacrifice. Our decisions are just decisions. We weigh the options and act. How she raised my sister and me on first no salary (when my dad left us) and then on welfare and then on a $10,000 annual salary still baffles me. It certainly explains why my sister and I have had jobs since we were 13 years old (we all helped with the bills) and why we ran the oven to warm the apartment instead of the furnace.

I want to keep this post merry in the spirit of the New Year, so I'll digress from my childhood and turn to the future. I read Terri's post that she had "goals" and not "resolutions". So, here are my goals for 2011:

(1)Work on relationships with my family (work harder to see my mom more often, spend more quality time with my son, work on my marriage, and really talk to my sister)

(2) Work on work (send out at least 5 manuscripts (yes, I live in the world of publish or perish), submit 2 new grants, be more consistent with student follow-up)

(3) Stay committed to running (at least three 5Ks and one half-marathon, do a destination run)

I think that's it... I want to keep 2011 simple, because 2010 certainly was not. There's that voice in the back of my mind nagging me... "what would you do if you knew you could not fail?" that is bugging me to write one more resolution (oops, I mean goal) that stretches me. So, my stretch of a goal is go back to therapy. I stopped because I thought I would fail myself and I was starting to dig too deep.

My question of the day for you is, what 2011 resolution would you make if you knew you could not fail?

Running update: no run today because I've been running 6 days straight. I was supposed to take a rest yesterday, but the new sneakers made me do it!