I have the usual resolutions: gain 10 lbs, spend more money.  In addition, I have thought of a few other things I’d like to be sure to do in the next twelve months.

Become good at humming.

I have a terrible singing voice, but I still sing constantly.  I don’t care.  It feels good and I want to do it.  Having a baby has made life a musical.  There is a song in anything, and sometimes a dance, and it’s probably because she’s not old enough to tell me to shut up yet.  Lately someone I spend a lot of time with has been humming constantly, and I realized how comforting it is.  It’s like the audio version of having your hair washed and combed by someone else.  It’s so relaxing and pretty.  My grandmother hums a lot, too.  She has a nice voice.  If recordings I’ve heard of myself are accurate, I sound like a shrill baby, so I hope that I can train myself to produce a nice, calming hum.  I think it’ll be useful when I have a punchy, shouty toddler.

Spatchcock a chicken.

If you read thekitchn daily, as I do, you’ll notice that the same recipes/posts reappear, and although the linking to links to links gets irritating, I always will stop and look at Spatchcocked Ricotta Chicken.

It looks delicious and it sounds awesome.  However, working with a whole chicken grosses me out, plus I’m going veg for a little while.  In the meantime, I’ve been working on a TV series to sell to Mystery! on PBS called “Spatchcock.”

Edward Spatchcock is a detective based in London in the 1930s.  He’s a bumbling, small man who tries to keep his detectivery in business after the death of his father.  He always gets to the bottom of things, either because of his bumbleness (is that a word?  It sounds British) or because of Poppy, the young secretary who was secretly working as an apprentice to the late Spatchcock (women would not openly be allowed to be detectives for some time, although they could wear trousers on Fridays) and was, the younger Spatchcock thought, just coincidentally useful.  I will get him to play Spatchcock:

I guess I will be Poppy.

See “the Hunger Games” in the theater.

I only went to the movies twice in 2011.  We talk about going to one occasionally (I would never had taken the baby with us, and those days are long over, anyway), but it’s also one of those things that I don’t miss.  Since I’m used to watching things after their initial runs, there is no immediate need to see movies when they’re released.

Except for “the Hunger Games,” which looks awesome.  I think I’m more excited to be excited about a thing that people are excited about for once.  I don’t have high hopes that the movie will be that good.

Make good on a promise to host a party, see a friend, have someone over for dinner.

Scratch that, I’m going to get better at letting my friends know that they have to be the ones to initiate a hangout.  We will often get pumped about the idea of having people over, but then we never follow through.  I think the best way to get us to do something is invite us that day.  It seems to work the best.

JUST SAYING.  The number of times I have half-made plans to see people other than running into them have all failed, and it’s depressing.  Also, if I had told you in the last two months that I was having a Christmas party, and you wondered why I didn’t invite you, please know that I didn’t have a party.  Instead I spent time with more than one baby and realized that our house was so far from being ready to be safe for children other than the one who by nature I will look after.

That’s it.  I do everything else perfectly.  Happy 2012, everyone!