To celebrate the New Year, I am going to buy a portrait-quality picture of Annie, place it in a gilt frame, and hang it above my bed.

I will do that first thing tomorrow.

Like the Little Orphan Optimist, I love tomorrow! It is the one thing most likely to get me through today.

I got up this morning with a notebook full of resolutions. Thus far, I have worked toward . . . let me count . . . none of them. I am going on a diet, of course, but since I didn't get the chocolate croissants baked before New Years there was nothing to do but bake them this morning. (And if you think I will ever have the resolve to walk away from a chocolate croissant, we've never met.) Thus, I will start the diet tomorrow. Likewise the exercise routine and the new organizational system and the 2013 budget and . . . Tomorrow is going to be very busy.

I have spent most of my life vowing to do better tomorrow. The fatal flaw in this is, of course, the annoying frequency with which "tomorrow" becomes "today." As in years past, unless there’s a Joshua around somewhere to keep the sun from setting Wednesday evening, I have no more hope of completing my new To Do list then than I do today. 

Fortunately, six days of every week come with a shiny-new tomorrow of their own! The seventh day, Saturday, is even better. While it lacks a viable "tomorrow" in which to cram menial chores, day following it is a day of rest, thus it comes with something even better – a Monday! That is two days away, making it a veritable utopia for procrastinators like me. Until, of course, it dawns.

So, do you wonder how I ever keep a New Year’s resolution and/or keep from sinking into despair? Easy! Anyone can do it! First, obtain a pair of Genuine Little Orphan Annie Rose-Colored Glasses. (Quick! Send 72 proofs of purchase from 1940s-era Ovaltine to an address that no longer exists and wait patiently. Very patiently.) If that doesn't work, hold out until mid-January or so -- just when you’ve finally realized that you haven’t yet worked on a single New Year’s resolution -- and you will be delighted to recall that Chinese New Year is just around the corner. Another new beginning!

Wait, there’s more to my madness!

Come the middle of March, when I haven’t met a goal from Chinese New Year, I rejoice. The calendar shows that my birthday is right around the corner. Now there’s the day to begin a new year of life! When I fail at that, Easter is still a week or three away, giving me an even better reason to resurrect a glorious new me from the gloom of the last three months. If an overdose of chocolate bunny ears causes me to slack off just a bit toward the end of April, no worries! Summer begins soon – what better time to sweep out the moldy old me and embrace a bright new persona? Of course, summer is usually pretty hectic, but kids go back to school in late August. Good deal! Every September without fail I buy a new planner and use it faithfully (for a week or so) to help chart my new course of resolution.

Admittedly, I take October through December off for the holidays. (The holidays begin on Columbus Day and extend through Halloween and beyond.) But even in those joyous times of frivolity, merry-making, and overindulgence, I look piously ahead to a fresh start in the New Year.

See?

In the interest of truth in blogging, I must allow that there is a downside. I have yet to lose weight, de-clutter my surroundings, or write the Great American Novel. (Or even the Mediocre American Novel.) Am I worried? Not at all. Not only is today only the first day of 2013, but it is the first day of the rest of my life! What am I doing sitting here at the computer? I have resolutions to keep, an eight-foot-long To Do list to check off, a glorious new me to sculpt from the ruins of the old model! (Please pray that I have enough raw material left for something useful if not decorative.) Today, right this minute in fact, I will begin the trek up that metaphorical mountain to vistas of unimaginable splendor!

And if I become beffuddled in the foothills and wander off course yet again? Well, there’s always tomorrow.

(Help!)