End of year notes

Lots of people are offering year-end reflections, and I am enjoying reading them. So thanks to you who are sharing your thoughts and dreams.

Today we went shopping at Woodman's. Woodman's Markets is an employee-owned U.S. regional supermarket chain based out of Janesville, Wisconsin. Founded in 1919 as a produce stand, Woodman's has grown to operate sixteen stores in Wisconsin and northern Illinois. Woodman's has appeared on Supermarket News Top 50 Small Chains & Independents list since 2010. The one in Sun Prairie is about five minutes away by car, is absolutely ginormous and has lots of organic and locally grown produce and all that jazz. We are still finding our way around in it.

When we moved, we brought a lot of food for the pantry -- canned goods and rice and other dry things. I packed what was in the freezer into two coolers, too. But we had pretty well emptied out the refrigerator. As a result, our nice big refrigerator in the apartment looked like a cartoon joke: a bottle of catsup, a jar of mustard, a jar of salsa, some soft drinks and bottled water, butter (for some reason, we had three pounds of butter in the freezer), yogurt and cat food. Little by slowly we are getting other things in place.

Tom had gone out after breakfast to run some errands of his own, and I took advantage of his absence to clean the floors a little. With the snow, lots of muck has been tracking itself into the place. And I finally got to the apartment complex fitness center and put in fifty minutes on the treadmill and fiddled around a little (okay, fiddle around a miniscule) with the weights. I had the place to myself at eight in the morning. When looking it over a couple of times, I have seen other people using it. It will be interesting to see if New Year's resolutions result in increased patronage. And if so, how long that lasts!

Of those Americans (I suspect we may not be all that different from others in this regard) who make New Year's resolutions, only 23% keep them. In fact, 35% of such resolutions are broken before the end of January. About 40% of Americans (and in this, we may not be so typical) resolve to lose weight. Year after year after year after pound after pound after. Been there, done that, huh? The most popular resolution is to become more physically fit, followed by improving one's finances and getting healthier. Losing weight comes in fourth. But many folks who say they want to become more physically fit or healthier, when questioned, say that means they want to lose weight. 

Well, resolutions or not, and however you choose to observe the transition from 2015 to 2016, may your own New Year be filled with delightful surprises. And may all its disappointments be fleeting and small.