dianaschnuth

Well, it wouldn’t be a proper New Year without a resolution. In years past, I’ve tried multiple angles on the Resolution: one simple thing (last year’s resolution to brush my teeth more), one obvious thing (losing weight, multiple years), or a combination thereof.

This year, I’m trying a new angle: a to-do list categorized under one broad idea. The theme for 2005 is “Preparing For The ‘Mom Thing.'”

Not about my Mom. Like, about me being one. Scary, eh?

So, the way I figure, I need to kick up the responsibility factor a notch if I’m ever going to be responsible for another human being. That, and to keep Aaron from eventually kicking me in the teeth with frustration. It would happen, I’m sure.

This could obviously take on several discrete tasks. The main ones I’m thinking of are:

• Lose 20 more pounds or 2 more dress sizes by Autumn 2005
• Find and see a local doctor (general practicioner / family doctor) and a girlie doctor (aka an OB/GYN)
• Unpack my boxes of keepsakes and scrapbooking items currently taking up space in the small bedroom
• Brush my teeth more often, with the prescribed Tooth Maintenance™
• Be punctual (leave for work on time, arrive on time)
• Be more domestic, in terms of cleaning house

The list in my head is more detailed, true, but there are some things that aren’t for public consumption. I’m sure you don’t need to hear all the gory details about my potential exercise routines or my regime of Tooth Maintenance™ (although Amy knows all about that, and so does Aaron).

So, yeah. I need to do some self-improvement, as per usual. Maybe if I focus on preparing myself to be a better caregiver—no, say it: to be Someone’s Mommy—then maybe that will give me the impetus to be a better person now.

I had a dream last night that I found out my husband was sleeping with someone else while I was away from the house. In the dream, it was someone I knew, but not in real life. I don?t remember how I found out, but I remember feeling like I?d been punched in the stomach. (That was a regular occurrence when I was little, so I know how it feels.) I was ready to forgive him, though, except for one thing:

?So, what do you say?? I asked him in the dream, referring to what they did during the act itself. ?Do you tell her you love her?? He said he did.

That was even worse than being cheated on physically. The idea that he could not just make love to someone else, but actually *love* someone else hit me the worst in my dream.

Don?t worry, Aaron, I know it was just a weird dream, and that you wouldn?t actually do anything like that… It was still disturbing, though.

As is my wont each year after Christmas, I now begin the annual tally of Stuff I Got For Christmas.

From Aaron to me:
A refurbished Dell Dimension 3000 (so, so nice!) | Wil Wheaton’s book Just A Geek | a Whitman low-carb Sampler | eight, count ’em, *eight* boxes of Pocky | a five-pack of Fuji film | The Spartan Dischords‘ CD Happy Hour

From Aaron’s family, to both of us:
From Uncle Pete: The Best of Times: America in the Clinton Years | From Grammie and Poppa: $70 gift card to Wal-Mart | From Aaron’s Dad: two crisp bills of currency that made our eyes bug out slightly | From Aaron’s brother Matt: $30 to Value City

With the money from Grammie and Poppa and Aaron’s dad, we had quite the haul at Wal-Mart: A Dirt Devil bagless vacuum, a filing cabinet, a new desk lamp for me. windshield wiper blades for the Kia, a new Stanley toolbox, and other various odds-and-ends.

Mom didn’t get me anything this year, but I can understand why: they’ve been in their new house for some time now, and neither of them are employed yet. They’re still trying to figure out how to make next month’s mortgage payment, so I wouldn’t expect them to go out Christmas shopping.

So ends another holiday season.

Saturnalia, as any student of Latin knows, was the Roman holiday analogous to Christmas. On XVI Kalends Ian (the sixteenth day before the first of January), the feast of Saturnalia was celebrated. Eventually, the celebration stretched to multiple days. As found on the University of Vermont Department of Classics website:

Similar to our Christmas, [Saturnalia] was characterized by the giving of gifts. In fact, eventually the rites of the Saturnalia festival was absorbed into the Christian tradition and reborn as Christmas. The social order was also inverted, citizens would serve dinner to their slaves, and those slaves would later go out into the streets and gamble with dice, which was illegal during the rest of the year. On the day of the festival itself, there was a sacrifice at the temple followed by a public banquet. After this banquet, citizens are reputed to have shouted “Io, Saturnalia!”

Now, Romans were known to love their holidays, but Saturnalia was their favorite. In fact, it was so embedded into the Roman culture that by the time Christianity had taken hold in the fourth century A.D., many (if not most) of the traditions of the Saturnalia had been absorbed into Christmas.

Io, Saturnalia!