it's early february, and i've come up with three new year's resolutions:

1) find and purchase affordable health insurance to replace my overpriced plan through work. mission accomplished, as i've cut my monthly expense for health insurance approximately in half, while also receiving a quarterly (and extremely shady) bonus as thanks from the office for leaving the plan. of course, it would be a lot nicer if healthcare were free, but i guess no modernized country could possibly provide that necessity for free, could they?

2) lose some freakin' weight already. we started that at the outset of the year, and it has been working. eating better, and walking up the stairs for exercise. per a co-worker's suggestion, i'm planning early morning ymca visits next week (the better to metabolize, my dear), but i put the odds of them actually happening at approximately 42-1. (and, of course, the real challenge comes during the season, when ballpark food and subway are about my only sources of nourishment. or i could just bring my own salad along...)

3) keep things tidy already! i get my mail. i dump it on the table in the corner. i take off my tie and belt when i get in. i leave them in the middle of the floor. i finish with a magazine. i leave it on the floor next to my bed. these are things that happen. therefore, i resolve to a) do my dishes immediately after eating, b) file or trash my mail when i receive it, c) put away my clothing, be it in the laundry basket or back in the closet, after taking it off, and d) throwing out an old magazine the instant i get the next issue [if there's a particularly great article, cut it out and file it somewhere; exceptions made for magnet magazine, which is a gift that keeps on giving for years].

of this four-pronged resolution, i'd say none are likely to occur. however, d) has the best chance of happening, followed by a), c), then b).

today was incredibly beautiful. 55 degrees beautiful. mid-march and not early-february beautiful. sing loudly while jamming to the ipod on the way home from work beautiful. making stupid comments like 'don't'cha just love february?' to fellow walkers or joggers beautiful (i actually did that). smile for the sake of smiling beautiful.

it looks like tomorrow's supposed to be even better.

however, last sunday's 14-day forecast (!) on one of the local news stations projected that this coming thursday will hit a high of 14 degrees. yes, 14 days! (word is, it's all really guesswork after about 60 hours.)