It’s Never Too Late for Resolutions

CCHAMPAGNE ToASTS, Auld Lang Syne and New Year’s kisses are over, and it’s time to look ahead to 2012.

Ringing in the New Year gives us a chance to reflect on the past and consider making changes in our lives. The key is to keep your goals simple, attainable and rewarding.

Do you want to improve your mind, your body or the world around you? Even if your answer is “all three,” pick one for starters. To work on your cognitive skills, consider joining a book club or a card club, taking a class on computers, renewing your library card and then using it, playing a video game with a child or a scrabble game on your phone like Words With Friends. For a healthier body, there are several classes to try around the city. Harbor Yoga on High Street offers yoga in a hot room, which feels great in the cool weather. The Dublin Recreation Center has choices from Zumba to spinning, Pilates and swimming. You could also try eating more healthfully by buying organic foods and cooking at home.

Whole Foods offers recipes on its website and cooking classes at its stores. You could invent your own version of going green by adding vegetables to each of your meals – such as a cup of kale or spinach leaves in your smoothies.

This could be your year to be more environmentally savvy. Get rid of disposable sandwich bags and grab a reusable container instead. Use an aluminum water bottle and cloth grocery bags instead of plastic ones. Switch your incandescent light bulbs to CFLs and wash most of your laundry in cold water only. Make it a game and get your kids involved to see how many changes you can make.

Remember to write down your goals and accomplishments as well.

Make a chore chart, an exercise graph or a weekly menu, or keep a journal. Putting a resolution on paper makes it official, and hanging it in a common space makes it harder to ignore.

Bringing Back the Art of the Written Word

When it comes to expressing deep gratitude, heartfelt sympathy and true love, nothing compares to the sincerity of a handwritten message. Did you ever receive a note from a girl that was sprayed with her perfume? How about a card from a boy that was picked out just for you with a message he wrote inside? It is infinitely more personal than today’s version of black words on a white computer screen.

After college, I backpacked through Europe and northern Africa for three months. I sent postcards and letters regularly to Tony, who is now my husband, and he kept every single one. You can trace my entire journey through the details of my adventures on these cards, including maps I drew and people I sketched. They are wonderful mementos for our children that cannot be compared to a file of stored e-mails.

There is just something about receiving correspondence in the mailbox that never gets old. Why else are we excited to get the mail every day? Do we look forward to opening more bills? No, it’s the hope that something personal awaits us, which is why the influx of holiday cards each year is so much fun. But if you want to receive a letter, you need to send a letter. So join my quest to bring back the art of writing for 2012. The only rule is that you have to put pen to paper once a week for the year. I know this is difficult because I have tried it before and failed. This year, some daring Dubliners are joining me, though, and newcomers are welcome at any time.

I will check in regularly with you on your writing and report back in my column. Start with a “thank you” to your neighbor for shoveling your sidewalk, or slip a note into your friend’s pocket or child’s lunch bag. Or embark on a larger letter writing campaign with some of our Dublin Life readers.

Angie O’Brien, co-owner of Harbor Yoga Studio, grew up writing to her grandmother in Florida to keep her in the loop. “Every Sunday from third grade to the end of my freshman year of college, I wrote to my grandma. Now she is in a nursing home and I think she would benefit from weekly correspondence more than ever, so I’m joining the writing challenge,” says Angie.

Colleen D’Angelo is a freelance writer, who lives in Dublin with her husband, three children and several small animals. She enjoys playing tennis, walking the Dublin bike paths and traveling to distant lands.

Jenny Patton is pursuing her master’s in creative writing and looks forward to sending snail mail to a loved one each week of 2012. She was 7 when she had her first pen pal and, as a California kid, she found it exotic that her letters traveled to places where it snowed.

Jenny’s writing was encouraged early, as her Aunt Valerie gave her stationery and journals for Christmas.

Jenny’s grandmother was also an avid correspondent with artful handwriting who wrote to her until Alzheimer’s set in. “It’s amazing how much more connected I feel with someone by taking the time to write an individual e-mail instead of a mass e-mail,” Jenny says.

Megan James, owner of MJ2 Marketing Group, has her three children write “thank you” notes after every event and deems it an important life skill. Megan gave notecards to her clients last year with the word Gratitude embossed and was thrilled to receive several cards back with handwritten notes inside. “It is a nice reflection on people and shows old-school etiquette in this new world of technology,” says Megan.

Twitter may be fun to announce your lunch spot, and e-mails are great for quick information exchanges, but nothing can replace the handwritten word. -CD

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