With only a few days until the beginning of new year, it's time to start working on those resolutions. For many of us, it may be the same resolution which has been considered the past five years. Others may be trying something new this next year.

Either way, how you address the resolution may determine whether you will succeed or fail since half of all resolutions are abandoned by February 1. This happens because most people just think about the resolutions instead of writing them down or doing something concrete about their ideas immediately.

For example, if your resolution for the upcoming year is to lose weight, then  you are supposed to keep a food journal of everything you eat. Everything. Every. Single. Bite. You. Put. Into. Your. Mouth.

You are supposed to write down the type of food you ate, the amount of food you ate, how you felt before you ate, how you felt after you ate, how your dog felt, how clean your house was before you ate. You get the idea.

If I had to write down every thing I ate, I would get nothing else done during my day because I'd either be eating or writing or sitting around trying to remember if I ate the entire bag of Doritos or just half the bag.

Plus, I would have to admit how much I ate. I would have to note that I finish off the leftovers on my children's plates. I would have to acknowledge that my hamburger is the recommended size of not one deck of cards, but rather a triple decker. I would have to declare that I finished off the box of ice cream bars instead of claiming one of the kids got into the freezer.

Of course, if I started a food journal, I may actually be able to lose the "baby fat" which insists on sticking around and fulfill my New Year's resolution.

 

While I may be waffling about the resolution to lose weight, I'm already taking action on another resolution: to get organized.

At the end of my life, the amount of time I spent simply looking for lost items will add up to not days or weeks, but probably years. Multiple times every day I hear some variation of the question, "Has anyone seen….?"

In an attempt to declutter at least one room in our house, the laundry room, and at the same time make things more accessible, my husband came up with the idea of a peg board.

What is a peg board? It is just a big piece of wood with a bunch of holes all over it, generally used by stores to hang items to sell.

I must admit that I was against the idea of an unattractive peg board covering the walls of my laundry room. After all, I am the one who spends countless hours in this room sorting clothes, folding towels and looking for lost socks. Over the course of several years, I had attempted to make the room aesthetically pleasing. My grand-total number of decorations included a small wall-hanging recycled from my daughter's redecorated room and a plaque which says "laundry" as if the room would be confused by the washer and dryer.

Despite my limited decorations, I was not looking forward to looking at a wall covered with pegs, hanging hammers and dangling screwdrivers. Aesthetics were going to be throw out the window with the addition of a peg board.

With the board hung and dozens of bare metal pegs available for use, my junk drawer has been emptied and everything is now hanging on my laundry room wall. In fact, I've found myself addicted to hanging things. ?If a package item has a hole at the top, it gets hung on the peg board. If an item has a slight hook at the top, it gets hung on the peg board. If I can rig up the pegs to somehow hold the item, it gets hung on the peg board.

My laundry room wall is now covered with everything from extension cords to bike locks, cup holders for spare change to paint brushes. And I can actually find a hammer when I need one, since there are now four adorning my laundry room wall.

As for my addiction of hanging everything I can find? I can tackle that with a resolution next year.