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Making New Year’s resolutions is an ancient tradition practiced by the Babylonians and the Romans and continued by many of us. The top ten are: eat healthier, exercise more, save money, learn something new, let go of nasty habits, read more, change jobs, drink less, spend more time with family and friends, get organized.

As “Auld Lange Syne” fades into the background for another year, you may find your good intentions doing the same thing. Ten tips for continuing are: be realistic, plan ahead, outline your plan, make a pros and cons list, talk about it, reward yourself, track your progress, don’t beat yourself up, stick to it, keep trying.

Change is difficult. Don’t try to create a new person in one fell swoop. One thing at a time is a good rule. For example, if you’re trying to eat healthier, you may not be saving money but spending more at the groery store. If you start a new job, you may have less time to spend with relatives and friends for a while. A few things can work together. If your quitting smoking, increasing your exercise by taking long walks could help.

This blog was my resolution two years ago. It took until mid-March to make it happen and I’m still trying to figure out some of the mechanics involved. Writing’s fun. Facts I need such as my two top ten lists printed above are easy to find on the internet. Type in my question and a couple clicks give me an immediate answer. In the old days, I had to spend half-an-hour driving to the Rockford Library and hoping the librarian could find the right book for the answer. Phone inquiries were never as fruitful as in-person requests.

Have you made any New Year’s resolutions?

Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve, but Ken and I won’t go out to celebrate. For several years, I’ve been making lobster thermidor for supper and opening a bottle of Asti. We’ll reminisce about the night sixty-three years ago when my boyfriend was in the navy.

That evening, my folks and I stayed home, too. It had snowed all day and blocked our driveway. We missed the crowded dance floor at the Wigwam hall. At midnight, the band would play “Auld Lang Syne” while everyone donned paper hats, blew cardboard horns, and shook metal noisemakers. Instead Mom popped corn to snack on while we watched TV and went to bed after the ten o’clock news.

1958 began with the jangle of the telephone startling us awake from a sound sleep–a long and a short, our ring on the party line. Good news did not arrive at 2 a.m.

Mom crawled out of my parents’ warm bed to answer the phone sitting on the desk in the kitchen. I held my breath to hear her better. After a pensive, “Hello,” she paused before uttering a disgusted, “Happy New Year.” Her tone dripped with exasperation when she called, “Lolita, it’s for you.” She shuffled back to bed.

I knew it was Ken using a pay phone in California. His ship, the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Bennington, was docked at its home port of San Diego. I hopped out of bed, dashed to the kitchen, and eagerly picked up the receiver. “Hello” I said breathlessly.

My boyfriend had forgotten that in Durand no one sat at the switchboard between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. After-hours calls roused Nona, the middle-aged, corpulent, red-head who lived in the house where the system was located. I assumed our neighbors also crawled out of their cozy nests and lifted their receivers to learn about the Tschabolds’ catastrophe that necessitated a late-night call.

After a bit of small talk, Ken ended the call, which was limited to three minutes, “I’m here in San Diego at the Jade Room bar and I just wanted to wish you a Happy New Year. I’ll see you in July. Bye.”

“Happy New Year. I’m glad you called. Bye.” I returned to bed feeling warm and gooey inside like a toasted marshmallow. After nearly four hour of sleep combined with the excitement of talking to my steady, it took me a long time to return to dreamland.

What is your most memorable New Year’s Eve?

Tomorrow night is Christmas Eve. Santa will circle the globe visiting all of the children. I remember being the jolly old elf’s first stop when we lived five miles southeast of Durand on Herb Lillie’s 120-acre farm. I was a second grader at the Dobson country school that sat on the far side of our garden. The ‘big kids’ had told me there was no Santa Claus, but I thought they were just teasing me, which they often did.

At 4:30 p.m., I had to go to the barn with my father while he hand-milked our small herd of a dozen cows. My mother usually helped him, but she was busy making supper for Aunt Frannie, Uncle Hookie, Doris and Sis who were coming at 7:00 to eat and open gifts. To wait for Dad, I sat down on Mom’s wooden milk stool. The body heat generated by the bovines had warmed the building enough that I took off my mittens and stuffed them in my snowsuit pockets. I picked up Fuzzy, our long-haired, coon-colored cat, and held her on my lap. She purred as I petted her. Tony, our white, English bulldog, was curled up on a bed of straw in the corner beside me. I told him all about our plans for the evening.

Dad interrupted, “Did you hear sleigh bells?” I’d missed the sound. He was soon done because he could skip the ones that were dried up in prepaaration for delivering calves in the new year.

I re-entered the house through the back porch and ran across the kitchen to the decorated tree in the living room. There sat the sled I had asked for when I talked to the man with the white beard at Sears & Roebuck department store in Rockford. The wooden surface atop the shiny, metal runners was painted bright red with DODGER in black letters down the middle. There also were more wrapped packages than when I went out. Mom was busy cooking and didn’t hear Santa slip in through the front door that we never used. That was the last year the reindeer stopped at my house.

How old were you when you quit believing in Santa Claus?

Two Christmas gifts I received seven years apart made it possible for me to become a writer. When I was a sophomore at Durand High School, I took typing in preparation for an office job after graduation. In December, my parents gave me a Royal portable typewriter. Later, I learned it was the first time they bought an item on time. I never knew why they purchased such an expensive present that I hadn’t even hinted I wanted but was thrilled to receive.

The first holiday after Ken and I were married, he suggested we give each other a 35 mm camera. I was pregnant and he wanted to be ready to take pictures of our future family.

Ten years later, our three kids were in school. I thought I could go back to work at an office job similar to the one I’d had before we were married. While reading the help wanted pages in the Rockford Morning Star, I was intrigued by the newspaper’s ad for a correspondent in the Durand community. I met with an editor and learned all I needed to be one of their part-time, freelance journalists was a typewriter and a 35 mm camera. Education or experience weren’t required. I reported on civic board meetings, chased fire trucks and wrote feature stories about people doing interesting things. I had found my calling. To enhance my writing skills, I read publications, attended workshops and joined professional organizations. Thirteen years later, the daily dropped all community correspondents. I pursued submitting articles to national farm, police and women’s magazines.

Our fiftieth wedding anniversary stirred memories of our seven-year courtship, which began with a Ferris wheel ride when I was fourteen and Ken was sixteen. I realized life on a family dairy farm during the 1950s was alien to people living in this new century. I wrote a memoir, The View from a Midwest Ferris Wheel, using my mother’s daily entries in her diary as a guide. It will be released by Adelaide Books, an independent New York City publisher.

Do you ever get the feeling that your life is preordained?

Acts of Congress have designated our country’s festivals. Christmas is shown in red numerals on the calendar as December 25th. For families like ours with members who have jobs that continue 24/7, the day is when we say it is. It’s the people that’s important, not the date.

When Ken became a lawman, the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Police was housed in a section of the old Courthouse on Elm Street in Rockford, Illinois. On holidays, a public service announcement stated, “The Courthouse is closed today. ” I talked back saying, “Not all of it.”

Lisa and Kurt grew up to follow in their dad’s duty shoe footsteps–she became an Illinois State Trooper, and he joined his father as a deputy. Kurt married Sandy and they added Katelyn and Jacob to our family. For years, I juggled three cops’ shifts and sleeping hours to come up with a time that the eight of us could gather together for a turkey dinner followed by opening the presents stashed under the decorated tree. The three older officers have retired, but Jacob joined the Rockford Police Department nearly two years ago. Katelyn married Sean this fall. The newlyweds and Sandy have day jobs in offices. We continue to designate our own holidays.

Some of you split your time among various in-laws and outlaws. With old folks living longer and the prevalence of divorce, young people can have many places to be and relatives to see. One day doesn’t have enough hours to visit everyone.

Do you follow the calendar for holidays or set your own?

Saturday would be Dad’s birthday. I’ll never forget the surprise party Mom and her friend, Alene, threw for him when he turned 29. On the Friday night of his birthday, the three of us were supposedly on our way to a movie in Rockford. He was driving our black coupe with four-year-old me sitting in the middle and my mother next to the right-hand door. Mom and I shared a small blanket over our knees and a secret. When we entered the city, Dad stopped in front of Charlie and Alene’s apartment building on Rockton Avenue. He quickly ran up the stairs to return an empty honey jar. He walked into their second floor living room and a bunch of friends shouted, “Surprise!” Mom and I joined the group. Dad enjoyed the party, but it was obvious he was peeved.

Afterward, he vowed it would never happen again. He liked parties but only when he knew they were happening. Each December, he was alert for secret preparations. He sniffed the air for the odor of Mom baking something special and checked the corners of the rooms to detect if she’d done extra cleaning.

Ten years after that first surprise birthday party, the two friends couldn’t resist instigating another. The Wednesday of his 39th birthday, Dad chauffeured me to an evening chorus practice at Durand High School. Despite his vigilance, he was surprised to be greeted by a gathering of friends when he returned to our living room about 8:30. Again, he was miffed.

In many ways, Ken is like my dad. but not when it comes to surprise parties. The year my husband and his longtime buddy, Wayne, turned 50, we went to his pal’s surprise party three weeks before Ken’s birthday. A few days after the festivities, I asked my spouse how he wanted to celebrate. He ducked his head and mumbled, “I’d really like a surprise party like Wayne’s.

I informed him it was too late to plan a party. But it wasn’t. After he left for work at the sheriff’s department, I grabbed the phone and organized the get-together he requested. As a ruse, I asked his brother, Tom, to invite us for a celebratory supper at Glarner Stube in New Glarus, Wisconsin.

On the Friday evening of Ken’s birthday, the two of us were sitting at our kitchen table with Tom and his wife, Jan, enjoying a drink. We were waiting for our daughter’s sitter to arrive so the four of us could leave. My mate answered a knock at the front door. He was shocked and pleased when the crowd of his friends standing there hollered, “Surprise!”

Twenty years later, a large surprise birthday party at the Legion Hall elated Ken on his 70th birthday.

Do you love or hate surprise birthday parties?

ADEQUATE

Tomorrow, I’ll prepare Thanksgiving dinner in our Pullman kitchen. There’s room for only one cook in the narrow space between the two lines of cupboards, but that’s okay–I prefer to work alone. This story-and-a-half structure with its crooked floors and low ceilings is far from a dream house, but it has proved adequate for more than fifty years. I’m thankful for our home.

When Ken quit his hired-man job on his brother-in-law’s farm after seven years, our abode went with the employment. This newly-remodeled dwelling, one of the oldest houses in Durand, was the only one on the market in the village. With three bedrooms, a bath-and-a-half, a living room and an an eat-in kitchen, it would work for the five of us. We had no savings after having been inundated with medical bills without insurance. Durand State Bank provided a car loan of $1,000 on our ’64 Corvair for the down payment, which brought monthly mortgage payments within our budget. We moved in October 23, 1966, the day before Ken began a career with Winnebago County Sheriff’s Police. Linda and Lisa shared the larger of the two upstairs bedrooms with Kurt in the other. Our small boudoir, located beside the front door, accommodates the walnut suite we bought when we married–a double bed, a dresser and a chest of drawers. Four years later, we added a family room and a two-car garage.

After Lisa and Kurt became cops, our house served as collateral for their mortgages on the ranch-style homes they each purchased.

As empty-nester, Ken and I are still content living here. Through the years, we’ve remodeled several times including recently moving the washer and dryer from the cellar to the back porch. In the evenings, we usually watch separate TVs–he’s in the family room and I’m in the living room with the kitchen providing a noise buffer between. The upstairs has become storage space and sometimes the two bathrooms are handly.

What are you thankful for?

Tomorrow marks a week before Thanksgiving. It was the day Ken and Jerry, buddies since they were patrol partners with the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Police, left for deer hunting in northern Wisconsin. It gave them plenty of time for the eight-hour drive and settling in at the cabin before the season opened Saturday morning.

If I asked my husband when they were leaving, he responded, “We always…” For forty years, they followed the same agenda–leaving before sunrise, stopping at the same restaurants along the way, using the same deer stands and getting together with the same friends in the evenings. The following Tuesday they returned home. The only difference was sometimes they each brought back a deer and sometimes not. Either way, they enjoyed the trip.

Routines regulate our lives. Rituals get us up and ready for work in the morning, dressed to go out on the town in the evening or prepared for a day at home puttering around.

I spend mornings following Ernest Hemingway’s first rule for writers, “Apply the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.” My family knows my ‘do not disturb’ sign is up from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. That has been my siesta time for more than half a century. I can’t walk out the door until I’ve followed my mother’s admonition, “Go to the bathroom and get a drink.”

A couple months ago, I was preparing to attend our granddaughter’s wedding. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d worn panty hose and a dress. I had to stop and think just how to put on the garb. I also reminded myself to “act like a lady” while wearing it.

What do you always do?

Today is Veterans Day, no apostrophe because it is not a day that belongs to veterans, it is a day for honoring all veterans.

I live with a man who enlisted in the navy in 1954 during the Cold War, a state of political and military tension between the United States and Russia. The threat of nuclear weapons wafted over the globe like a mushroom cloud. After ten months of intensive schooling, Ken spent three years as an ordnanceman handling ammunition and bombs carried by the planes aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Bennington. The Big Benn was part of the Seventh Fleet that furnished on-the-spot protection to the United States foreign policy across the far eastern seas whenever and wherever required. The men trained every day but Sunday to be ready to do whatever might become necessary.

Ken and I were in love. Each summer during his four-year hitch, he came home on a thirty-day furlough. The rest of the time, we exchanged letters. I wrote to him every evening. He responded intermittently. During his leave in August 1957, I joined his family to view the slides he’d taken while aboard ship. My boyfriend’s pictures and commentary helped me understand his dangerous work. I was more patient when a lot of time elapsed between his letters.

Two years ago last May, Ken joined Vets Roll, the annual, four-day, bus trip from Beloit, Wisconsin, to Washington, D.C., for 200 veterans and “Rosie-the Riveters” to see the memorials. Fundraisers, donations and volunteers allow the non-profit organization to provide closure, gratitude and respect to America’s senior-most veterans.

My husband usually wears a cap that proclaims he’s a U.S. Navy veteran. He’s appreciative when someone thanks him for his service.

Have you voiced your gratitude to a veteran for his or her contribution to your freedom?

A recent lunch at Toby’s restaurant in Madison, Wisconsin, with my old chum, Susan, took about two hours. We aren’t slow eaters. It just takes a long time to consume bowls of potato soup topped off with dessert and coffee plus a large side dish of conversation. It’s a treat to chat with a contemporary who understands how we got where we are.

During my forty-five-minute drive to our confab, I thought about meeting Susan when we were teenagers. She attended Bethlehem Church in Brodhead and I belonged to Trinity in Durand, two Lutheran churches located about fifteen miles apart. The congregations shared a new pastor who formed a joint Luther League, a youth organization that met once a month on Sunday nights.

When we were young mothers lunching together, Susan was accompanied by her two, small sons and I brought my pair of toddler daughters. We each added a third child to our families–hers a girl and mine, a boy. Our adult kids are scattered and we’re grandmothers.

There have been breaks in our contact. Susan has lived in several states, divorced and returned to this area. She served as editor for various publications, retired but is looking at possibilities to resume writing.

My husband and I remained in our hometown. I’ve freelanced newspaper and magazine articles, joined professional writers’ groups in nearby cities and attended national conferences and workshops. Wednesdays, I post to my blog aimed at older women. My coming of age memoir, “The View from a Midwest Ferris Wheel,” will be issued in December by Adelaide Books, a New York independent publisher.

Our encounter wasn’t “remember when” time. A few memories crept into our discussion, but mostly we talked about what’s happening and what we expect in the future.

Do you engage in girltalk with a friend?