Janet Hommel Mangas: New Year’s resolutions … maybe

I’ve got seven New Year’s resolutions — that I may not actually ever keep.

1) I will swing my kettlebell 500, 300, or at least 100 times per day. Or three times per week. Or most definitely when there’s a total lunar eclipse.

2) I will quit opening up the “share my location” phone feature and asking my kids if they’re having fun at their concert — or wherever they may be.

3) I will not torment my grandson by taking endless creative photos of him in various wardrobe changes, hats and sunglasses, even though we all realize this grandmother/dressing-up-the-grandson season has an extremely short window of opportunity. I figure by the time he’s 18 or maybe even 10 years old, he’ll have his own opinions of going to grandma’s for playtime.

4) I will attempt to NOT knock ferociously at my bay window to scare away the scrappy common grackles and herds of starlings that swarm near my birdfeeders and bully the bluebirds. I will never again fling open the door and yell “scram, you varmint!” Mainly because when I do, it reminds me that as I age extraodinarily well, I am also becoming more like Granny Clampitt from the “Beverly Hillbillies.”

5) I will never again talk “favorite conifers or hostas” to strangers in the middle of the plant nursery section — even if I actually accidentally overhear their plant conversation with their spouse. I will especially not volunteer my own Johnson County zone research and personal opinions on the growth rates and differences between “Strict Weeper,” “Van Den Aker” and the majestic Chamaecyparis nootkatensis “Green Arrow” (Nootka Cypress). And don’t even get me started on the variety of trade names they have.

6) I will not utter the words: “So, I was thinking …” to my husband when walking around our gardens or staring out the window during a winter storm. Those four words inevitably seem to add to the husbands “hardscape garden to-do list.”

7) I will stop buying giant parade heads and text alerting my family when a new Christy’s of Indiana auction is live.

Janet Hommel Mangas grew up on the east side of Greenwood. The Center Grove area resident and her husband are the parents of three daughters. Send comments to [email protected].