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Christmas is behind us, New Year’s is ahead! Which means it’s just about time to come up with new resolutions. But what to resolve yourself for? Different things are important to different people! If you’re heavier than you’d like, your biggest resolution may be to lose weight. If you want to be more intellectually stimulated this year, you might resolve to read a book a month. What if you’re elderly or infirm, though? What kinds of resolution can you make to stay positive and healthy and happy? A few years ago, a retired teacher and widower named Mary Carol Herwood from the Buffalo, NY area wrote a great article to that effect for Yahoo! Sure, it was for New Year’s 2010, not 2014, but things haven’t changed that much in four years, and she really did have some great suggestions. She writes regularly for Yahoo!, including some great movie reviews, so you should definitely check out some of her other content. But for this time of year, this is the article we’re interested in. We can’t put the whole article here, you’ll have to read it on Yahoo!, but here’s our favorite of her suggestions to get you started!

“I will make plans more often to call a friend to take in a play or a movie, stop for a bite to eat and chit-chat about this and that.”

This one is our absolute favorite, as maintaining friendships and connections with others into old age is, in many ways, one of the absolute most important things to an elderly person’s continued well-being. It can be very easy to fall into the trap of letting this part of your life go as you age, as family and health issues take up more and more of your time, but the elderly are just as in need of companionship, friendship and fun as any of us!

“I will read at least one book each month.”

Reading is a wonderfully effective and fun way to keep one’s mind sharp, and has also been proven to be an excellent deterrent to the development of neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s Disease.

“I will not make any New Year’s Resolutions in 2010.”

Replace “2010” for “2014” here, but the point stands. If you feel happy and satisfied with everything in your life, then mission accomplished! So what better resolution to make than to have no resolutions to make next year?

Read the entire article HERE, and a happy early 2014!

Just one week until Christmas, so let’s have a little fun! Everyone tries to have fun with their Christmas trees when they decorate them. We know someone who decorates their tree with only white lights, bulbs, and Hallmark Star Trek and Star Wars spaceships, so it looks like a science fiction space scene! But what about people who want to go even further, and just make something 100% unique? This gallery is for them!