The times, they are a'changin' and in just a few hours, the New Year-2009-will drop in via the giant, Waterford Crystal ball on Times Square. This event signals the watchers around the world that it is now time to kiss and make up a list of resolutions-things they will do in the coming year to better themselves or change their lives.

It has been dog's years since I have gone anywhere on New Year's Eve besides my living room, or to bed early, but every year I do make my own resolutions.

Therefore, I, the over-signed, in the year 2009, do hereby resolve:

• To quit smoking. I started smoking in mid-1999, at age 40. Stupid? Yes, I concede your point. I won't go into the why's or wherefore's of my decision to do so. It is a long-winded story and I am short of breath. It has been almost 10 years now since I took up the nasty habit-and I am determined not to make it to 11 years. I would rather quit than die before that 11^th year arrives.
• To say "I love you" every day-to my parents, to my children, to my brothers and sisters, to my darling man. I want there to be no doubt in the minds and hearts of these people that they are absolutely loved by me. I may say it lightly at times or at the close of a conversation, but, on my honor, it is felt deeply.
• To write. I spend 85 percent of my time editing or proofreading other writer's work, which is my vocation-what pays the bills. I have written news articles, magazine articles, chapters in books, blogs, suicide notes (that's a hormonal thing), and ad copy. I am published everywhere. I have been paid to write since I was 17-however, ever since I was 16, I have wanted to write a novel. I am now 50. I think it's about time.
• To stop sweating the small stuff. I have got small stuff enough for ten people. I am a collector of small stuff to sweat. This is a hard resolution for me. I am not a big picture sort of person-I am detail oriented. It has been said that God is in the details. Eh, not so much, I think. I am paid to be a detail person, and for what I do, it is a marvelous trait. But in the larger scheme of things-well, I can't see the larger scheme of things as I am too busy picking apart the details of every single thing that occurs every single day of my life. I have Dewey Decimal-ed all the details and the card library in my head is overflowing. It is time to choose what is important, what is vital, what I absolutely need to be detailed about, and let the rest just, well, be.
• To be me. I am going to be whom God intended me to be, the person He created in His image. God does not make mistakes-He is God, after all. Omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent-and He chose to create me as I am. Just as I am. I will make Him proud of His handiwork.

I think that is enough resolving for one year. I am going to rest up now, then I'll probably have to carb load and stretch in preparation for the year ahead.

One more thing:

Have a blessed New Year.

Today I have spent a great deal of time discussing perfection-the quest for it and its possible attainment.

I will stand up right now (figuratively as I can't type on my laptop while standing because my lap disappears) and say, "Hi. My name is Hollee, and I am a perfectionist."

That being said, I will also now admit that I am far from perfect in any way, shape, or form, ergo most of my life, I have been my biggest disappointment.

During a long conversation with a loved one who, in some ways, knows me better than I know myself, I realized what a hard row to hoe this has been-this standard of perfection I have set for myself. Not that I was feeling sorry for myself at the difficulties I've encountered since my perfection quest was initiated in my teen years-no, I have no patience with woe is me conversations when I am the woe-er-I merely acknowledged to myself that those difficulties were of my own making and not the fault of any external force.

Nor have I set the same standard for others that I have set for myself, which, when you really get down to the nitty-gritty, means that I have set myself above others since perfection was obviously not possible for them . . . Wow! That thought just occurred to me. That is not good.

But I digress.

This need for perfection has, at times in my life, hindered my ability to start a task because I was afraid I would not be able to do it completely right. It has skewed my vision of myself to such a degree that I mentally pick myself apart whenever I look in the mirror-I literally do not see what I am told others see when they look at me. It has made me choose friends and companions that I felt were not perceptive enough to see my flaws, my defects, my "idiot"syncracies. Yes, that is a harsh statement, but there it is. But in my mind this was logical-if I chose someone who was as smart as me, or as driven as me, or who had my same talents, then they would be able to see when I made a mistake. (Now please take that last sentence in the spirit it is intended, those of you who don't know me. I do not dumb myself down-I know I am intelligent, ambitious, and have certain talents-I inherited all of those things and I won't deny a single one. To do so is false modesty.)

My greatest fears in life are being wrong and being made to feel stupid. I don't fear dying-I am a Christian, I don't fear being alone-I don't want to be alone, but I don't fear it. Admittedly, I do fear clowns, but that's a whole 'nother blog post. To the depths of my soul, I fear I may make an error in judgment, in my work, in my life, and I fear that someone may find out some day that, for the most part, I have no clue what I am doing.

That last is entirely illogical, because I have spent my life learning everything I possibly can about what I do for a living, and yet, I have had no formal "schooling" in my craft. I have worked my way up or sideways through the ranks of the writing community for the past 30-plus years-I have picked the brains of everyone that I admire as a writer and gleaned what I could from the fields of work I am pursuing or want to pursue.

So in some ways my need for perfection has forced me to put myself out there-to forgo my fear of having "Stupid" written on my forehead-and asked those who do know how they do that voodoo they do so well. I would have much preferred to just stand next to them and osmosisized the knowledge from them (no, osmosisized is not a real word), but since that is not yet possible, I had to actually ask questions. Asking questions was me admitting to myself and the person questioned that I did not know something. That is and was very hard.

My need for perfection has also driven me to always do the very best I can at anything I undertake-although it has hindered me from being an undertake-er in some instances-that qualifies it as a catch-22.

The question is: "What do I do? How do I accept less than perfection in myself?"

And these thoughts occurred to me as my loved one and I were talking: Is a sunset any less beautiful when you discover that the reason for the multi-colors is pollution? And which is more beautiful-the perfectly unblemished piece of pseudo-wood, or the knotty, nicked, and weathered wood that has a story to tell?

My mother continuously reminds me that a diamond-the most perfect of gemstones-is made from coal which is decomposed vegetable matter. A pearl-my particular favorite-is not, as commonly told-made from a grain of sand. A pearl is formed when something organic, most often a parasite, penetrates the shell of a mollusk and lodges within the soft inner body of the animal. The parasite encounters cells within the mollusk's mantle tissue known as epithelial cells which grow into a sac, envelopes the intruder, and excretes a chemical substance of aragonite and calcite. This is known as nacre or the composite of a pearl.

I don't know how not to be hard on myself. I have no clue. But I have been told that there comes a time when good enough needs to be accepted. I am not to settle for only achieving good enough-that is a bar set too low for my personality and I am done with settling-however, as long as I can truthfully say that I have given my absolute best effort, then that is good enough. I cannot be all things to all people, I cannot fill everyone's needs, I cannot do everything myself-I have to ask for assistance, let go and allow someone else to help me (not ask for help then do it all myself anyway), learn from my mistakes, learn from others who have already successfully done what I want or need to do, and accept that there may be times when I can't do something. I need to learn when "No" is the perfect answer.

I need to look at my flaws and defects-the decomposed vegetable matter and parasites-as, perhaps, that which makes me unique. It is those very things that keep me from being a cookie-cutter human, a Stepford, which gives me depth and contrast, just as clouds enhance the perfection of a blue sky.

I will think on these things-remind myself of them when my perfection bug gets the best of me. That is the best I can do in this instance.

However, I was told today that I am loved for who I am, flaws and all, without reservation, without modification, without an "except for . . ."

How perfect is that?

If I had my druthers, this is how a recent conversation with my 20 year-old daughter, Samantha, would have played out:

Sam: Oh, most beautiful mother in the entire world, I have been asked by a friend to take a trip to sunny southern California for a week after Christmas. Have you lost weight? By the way, this friend is paying for the round-trip ticket. May I go?

Me: Is there a ticket for me also?

Sam: Of course! I would never go anywhere without you-you are my best friend. By the way, your hair looks especially lovely today.

Me: Then let's book the tanning booth and starve ourselves until take off, oh dutiful, obedient, and loving daughter of mine.

Sam is my baby-the youngest of my three daughters. After having my first two children before I reached the age of 22, it was another seven years before I had Sam-nine months to the day before my 30^th birthday. The wait was due both to my divorce and to careful planning after I had remarried at age 28.

I don't know if I was a better mother at 29 than I was at 19, but I was certainly calmer. By that age, and after two other children, it took quite a bit more than projectile vomiting or a bean stuck in the child's nose to rattle me.

As Sam's mom-the woman umbilically-bound to her for 40 weeks who labored painfully for 36 hours to bring her into this world, nearly died, and had to have her cut from my poor, exhausted body (not that I am complaining or trying to heap any guilt on you, Sam)-I have to brag on her a bit.

Sam slept through the night at three weeks, weaned herself off the bottle (throwing it against a wall in a fit of pique) at nine months, potty-trained herself (read: pulled off her diaper and ran around naked refusing to let anyone re-diaper her) and learned to walk (hence the running from the diaper-wielding foe) at 11 months, and invented the Internet at 13 months.

Sam has always been incredibly smart and very independent. I was proud of her accomplishments at such an early age, but I was also a wee bit sad, because the more she learned, the less she needed me.

Oh, there were times when she did need me desperately. In 1992, when she was four-years-old, she needed me to give her "big hair like Mommy's" before she went to church Easter Sunday. She needed me to watch attentively and listen rapturously when she rode her new big girl bike over the speed bumps in the parking lot of our apartment, singing at the top of her lungs "Booty and the Beee-eeeast" (the last word always punctuated by the speed bump maneuver, which cracked her up). She needed me to buy her a "cimmenem" roll at McDonalds in the morning before I dropped her at the sitter's home. She needed me to sing Achy Breaky Heart with her at the top of our lungs on our long trips from our home in Norwalk, Ohio, to her dad's house in Independence, Kentucky, every other weekend.

Sam would not need me again until it was time to buy her first homecoming dress. The only reason she needed me at that time was because she and her friends were too young to drive (they were all 14), and they needed to go to Eastgate Mall to shop. Of course, I was not to be seen with them, I was to wait at the food court being terrorized by a mime until she and her friends were ready for me to chauffeur them home.

Later she would need me, briefly, to fill out the mountain of financial forms for her first year of college.

In 2006, the invisible umbilical cord-that tug in my heart every time my daughter left my sight-was stretched even further when Sam left for her first year of college. Helping her unpack in her dorm room at Xavier University, I realized that I would no longer hear her voice every single day, she would no longer be walking in the door at night, throwing down, first her purse, and then herself on my lap (whooomf) so she could tell me all about her day while I scratched her back or brushed her hair. We would no longer have our weekly DAY-DAY-DAY of BEAUTY-BEAUTY-BEAUTY! (we always imitated the voice-over guy on the monster-truck rally commercials when we said that phrase) on Sunday afternoons when we would do each other's hair, nails, and makeup-a tradition with us since she was five-years-old (imagine me with every color of the rainbow on my face and a dozen teeny-tiny, sparkly barrettes in my hair and orange Day-Glo® nail polish covering all of my cuticles and halfway to my knuckles). But I consoled myself with the knowledge that she was only about a 30 minute drive away from me.

However, a few weeks ago, the California conversation occurred. This is how it actually went:

Sam: MOM! (Yes, that was uttered in a loud squeal) He called me! He wants me to come and visit him in California! On the Marine base! He told me to book a flight-he is paying for it-and he's going to show me around California! He asked me what I wanted to see first and I said, "The Hollywood sign!" And he said, "The Hollywood sign?" And I said, "Yeah, you know those big white letters on the side of the hill?" And he laughed. I am so excited, Mom. (deep breath here) Isn't that exciting?

And over the loud thwap thwap thwap sound of the umbilical cord detaching itself from between my baby daughter and me and winding back into my body, I said:

 "Yes, Sam. That is very exciting. You'll have a wonderful time."[*]

[*] Sam left for California this morning. I have found consolation, not only in the fact that she is responsible and trustworthy and has been friends with this young man since she was 14 when he came home for a visit during his first tour in Iraq, but also in the fact that her dad, with whom she is very close, has been, admirably, nearly apoplectic with worry over this trip, and driving Sam bonkers. That is, after all, what a father is supposed to do with his little girl. It makes up for the fact that I was umbilically-bound to her for 40 weeks, labored painfully for 36 hours to bring her into this world, nearly died, and had to have her cut from my poor, exhausted body (not that I am complaining or trying to heap any guilt on you, Sam).

Last New Year, I made a resolution to increase the number of cells in my brain by reading, or rereading, the classic novels.

This did not include anything written by Stephen King or J. K. Rowling.

The authors on this list included, of course, Jane Austen (my personal favorite), Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leon Uris, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Gustave Flaubert, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, to name a few.

I've read War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, Exodus, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Great Gatsby, Emma, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, Persuasion, Madame Bovary, etc.

Right now I am slogging my way through Anna Karenina, by Tolstoy. I took a couple of days off to read Glenn Beck's An Inconvenient Truth--which I loved (thank you to my stepson, Will, for gifting me with this book)--but now I am back to slogging.

Parts of the book are quite exciting--some others, not so much. It has been classed as the greatest novel ever written and Tolstoy considered it his best work.

I dispute none of that.

I just wish the character's names weren't so confusing: Prince Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky is married to Darya Alexandrovna, Konstantin Dmitrievich Levin is in love with Ekaterina Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya, Anna Arkadyevna Karenina is married to Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin, but is in love with Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky, who has also captured the affections of Ekaterina Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya.

Not a Joe or Bob in the bunch.

Tolstoy originally released this novel in serial installments between 1873 and 1877 in a Russian Periodical.

It may take me four years to get through this one, but I will do it. Just to be able to say I read it.

I think the next book may be See Spot Run.

As for this New Year's resolution: I'm taking up coloring.

I have one fear that I have not been able to conquer.

I am not proud to admit this fear-it is unreasonable, and yet uncontrollable. It paralyzes me, causing heart palpitations and imminent hyperventilation.

Consider-I have spoken in public, sung solo at gatherings of 2,000 people, interviewed public officials, criminals, and famous authors, had my personal thoughts published and distributed to tens of thousands, and, and yes-this one is a biggie-worked with Helen Steiner Rice-the poetess made famous by Gibson Greeting Cards (this woman was a terror in a flowered hat).

None of these things has fazed me. I have had only a slight case of "butterflies" performing any of the above tasks.

But this task, honestly, is gut wrenching.

What is my greatest fear?

Clipping my dachshund's toenails.

The moment I take clippers in hand, I start shaking. I hold my breathe as I grasp his wee paw with my left hand and bring the clippers close to his offending nails and have to force myself not to close my eyes as I squeeze the grip.

Thumper, meanwhile, gazes at me with those liquid brown eyes so filled with trust and patiently waits while I tremble through this terrifying trim. He is confident I will not hurt him and that after all the grooming is over he will get a "cookie."

I know, I could pay a groomer or vet to do this, but he's my dog. I bathe him, brush him, feed him, clean his crate, pick up his toys, and play with him. I am the person he trusts and loves most.

Therefore I clip.

Then I drink.