I have one resolution. It’s to improve. I’m not sure, but that might also have been last year’s resolution, and I think I managed it, at least partly. I found new employment and didn’t resort to becoming a barista. I gained 20 happy pounds over the summer and lost most of it this fall. I officially think for a living. I have improved.

My second resolution is to consume less, but not when it comes to shoes or yarn. Can’t help those, but on that front, I am having two pairs of shoes resoled this month. I want to consume less. I’ll let you know how that works out. You’d think that because I’ve managed to compartmentalize my entire life within about three square miles (or maybe four, if you count my parents’ house), I’d buy a bike and cycle everywhere, but not so much.

My husband’s resolution is to live with health and motivation.

I wish you peace and health. I guess if you’re possessed of those, genuine contentment can’t be far behind.

I got a lovely e-mail from the folks who make Taggie blankets informing me that an entry I wrote well over a year ago infringed on their incredibly broad patent. If you want some interesting patent reading about blankets with ribbon tags, head over to their website and check out the link to their patent’s PDF.

The brilliant and imaginative Taggie people, in their incredibly broad patent, have declared to the free world that no one on the planet is allowed to make a product so simple in construction that a child could stitch one up in an hour.

So, there you go. I deleted my entry. Reckon they want me to burn the blanket I made, too?

ETA (on 12/31/07): I’d like to thank my prosperous, hilarious, handsome, bright patent attorney, who is adored by all (especially his wife, who is surely a saint, and his three boys, including a brand new one). He said several wonderful things on the phone about my dire patent infringement situation and explained the difference between the kind of patent the blanket people have and the kind they seem to think they have and remarked, also, that no one induces people to copy blankets with ribbon tags more than the blanket people themselves, who include step by step instructions in their patent, to which I will link when I am not tired and tipsy. Air kisses, bourbon drinks and midnight scrambled eggs and bacon to my favorite patent attorney, who, when talking to me about this whole thing, used the eff word a dozen or more times, because he is a man after my own vocabulary.

Cheers!