Warning: Sentimental "New Year's Resolutions" Post -- Do Not Be Alarmed We Will Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming Momentarily

So, this post is going to be stupid and sentimental, so don't read this if you don't care about sentimental crap. Go back and read my "Crazy Tea" post or something. I usually don't do sentimental, but all this talk about New Years is making me think. (Crap.)
I've always kinda hated New year's Resoultions -- they're so cliched, so boring, so obvious and expected. But this past year brought on a whole bunch of changes in my life, and I think it would be wise to look to the future, anticipating change, and try to define my goals. I thought of Four:

1. Improve my health and my commitment to health.
I lost somewhere around 50 lbs in the past year, due to significant lifestyle changes, like consistent exercise and healthier food choices. But I feel like I need to strengthen this health-commitment (probably because I've gone completely off-track this past week, like seriously, holy cannoli & cookies, hot chocolate, wow.)

2. Re-evaluate how I spend my time.
My schedule is super-busy, between school and work and jiu jitsu and everything in life. When I'm spread so thin, I don't even enjoy my life. I need to re-evaluate what I spend my precious little free time on. I want to stop committing to things that I really don't want to do.

3. HUMANS!!!
I love people, but simply haven't had the time and energy for deep, rich, meaningful human relationships in the last few months, with both family and friends. This seriously needs to change. People are everything to me. So, to everyone who feels like I have been out of their loop for a while -- I'm sorry! I'll be rejoining your loop soon! Keep the loop open! I love your loops! Loops all over the place! Hooray for loops!

4. Appreciate EVERYTHING.
Life is so short and unpredictable. So many family illnesses and health issues have been branding this fact into my conscience lately. It's so important to appreciate, fully, every little joy I can find. That's actually supposed to be the whole point of this Jackpot blog -- recording all my little Jackpot moments, all those times that I can't help but smile at silly little things which make strange impacts on me. Like Crazy Tea. Or wildlife in Target. I need to try to appreciate the wildlife in my wild life.

...Whew, OK, sentimentality crap out of the way, now.

So, I decided to rearrange some furniture in my apartment the other day. Two things to say about that: Dust, and Cat. I don't know what the deal is with dust. Where does it come from? Where does it go? What the holy hell is it? And how the holy hell does it get in the strangest places? But there was certainly enough of it flying around my place. And my Kitty -- wow, she was completely freaked out, it was great! She was all nervous because I started cleaning the night before, and then on Friday my mom came over to help me move furniture and vacuum and stuff, and the cat was FREAKED! If my mom started vacuuming my living room, she'd run into my bedroom, but I'd be moving furniture so she'd run into the kitchen, but the kitchen (being the room connecting my living room and bedroom) was stuffed with crap so she couldn't really get comfy in there. I kinda felt bad for her, but it was pretty entertaining.

Oh, and to clarify: I moved out 2 1/2 years ago, when I was seventeen, and this is the first time my mom has come to really help me clean, this isn't like a weekly thing. She has this week off of work (she works in a school system) and volunteered to help me because she knows that, left to my own devices, my self-motivation would burn out in about and hour and nothing would get finished. I come from a long-line of Super-Cleaners. My mom's mom mops her kitchen floor like every day. She came to my second apartment after I'd been living there for only a few weeks, and starts scrutinizing the place. She was opening my cabinets, looking under my couch, then she opens my oven and asks why it hasn't been cleaned yet. I hadn't even used it yet!