The Real Start to the New Year

Welcome to the real first day of 2010.

I know it's technically January 4. But those weekend days? The days where the kids are still home and you can still sleep in and the Christmas cookies beckon for breakfast? They don't count.

But today, the mother of all Mondays, to borrow a Twitter phrase from Leighton, is the day the gears start to turn again. The routine might be slow and sluggish, but it's there. The kids are off to school. The housework awaits. The laundry issues demands. And the Christmas cookies are stale. (At least, that's what I keep telling myself to resist tempation.)

It's the official beginning of the year.

Personally, I'm ready.

I love vacation, and being a just-barely-dominant sanguine, I live for fun. It's my primary motivator in life.

But the other half of my temperament is melancholic, and that means my spirit also loves order and routine and accomplishing tasks.

And the mother of all Mondays is all about goals and structure and possibilities.

Saddle up the horses. We've got a whole new year -- nay, a new decade -- staring us in the face.

The excitement of a blank canvas even negates the -3 temperature outside.

Almost.

After all, it is Monday. You can't expect perfection.

If you have no idea what I mean by temperament, you can test yourself here, which uses a test very similar to the one my husband and I use when we lead a seminar on temperament and relationships. Just be sure to come back and tell me what you are. The sanguine in me thinks that would be fun, and the melancholic in me thinks that would be informative and useful.