Casey Kasem. Every year when the calendar winds down to the last official week of the year, I hear Casey Kasem’s voice in my head. He’s the radio personality that has counted down the top 40 songs for some 30+ years. He retired this year. I remember sitting in my bedroom as a teenager, wondering what the top song of the year or the decade would be on the 31st of whatever year it was. Which, probably eludes to my lackluster adolescent social life.

So this time of year when Casey’s voice bounces around in my memory, when calendar stores randomly pop up at all the malls, and when fitness centers across the US start offering special deals, I realize we have now entered the season of New Year’s Resolutions. Vows to cut out sugar or nicotine, caffeine or nail biting, cursing or speeding, yelling at the kids, the spouse, the dog, decisions to pray more, give more, do more, whatever it may be, people resolve to do it on January 1.

Research suggests that if a person can keep up with a new activity for about 6 weeks, it becomes part of their routine, it can become habitual. So resolutions that have a chance of lasting are those that people hang on to for about 6 weeks. Most people I know, myself included, last only a few days or maybe a week with their resolutions. For many of us, it all sounds like a noble idea until we either get stressed, bored, or simply forgetful. Then we are back at it until another season or reason prompts us to action again.

At the grocery store today I noticed all the magazine covers boasting the top everything of 2009. The top 10 people, top 10 defining moments, top fashion disasters, top movies, songs, etc. Normally, I barely notice the magazine covers but this time of year, I am curious. Well, what were those defining moments? Who are those top people?

I stood in line tonight with my over-stuffed holiday stomach and my silent vow to eat less this coming year, for at least six weeks. And I thought about how impossible it seems to have any resolve when seemingly perfect people who have either the most fabulous career, social life, professional life etc. stare at me from all these magazine covers as the top of the top.

And then I start thinking about how they all have personal trainers or coaches, chefs or nannies, how they attended some of the top colleges and universities or how they had parents who decided to help them become fluent in 5 languages. And I think that perhaps I may not make a resolution of any sort since I’m just an average, slouchy mom buying milk and tangerines the week after Christmas.

But, and yes, here it comes, the “green moment”, average people like me and you are the ones who should make these sorts of commitments because when a million or a billion of us vow to shift something, change happens. And yes, we need to all play nice on the international scene and urge our nation to pull its weight when it comes to places like Copenhagen. But we also need to make a few resolutions that last longer than 6 weeks on our own, without political action or government prompting. Just average people making better decisions.

So, at the risk of sounding like Casey Kasem in your head. What are you going to do different in 2010? Can you do something a bit more sustainable than you did last year? Since, science has us careening toward irreversible climate changes, shifting a few things this year seems more than a little important.

Need some ideas? Here are some really easy ones. For most of us, starting small has more staying power than converting your car to run on vegetable oil, or getting rid of it entirely. Like starting an exercise program by running a mile instead of trying to run 26.2. Take small steps that actually work and you may have yourself a new habit that means something to the planet.

1. can you carpool with a co-worker once a week?

2. can you take the train, bus, or walk to work instead of driving once a week?

3. Can you ditch your disposable coffee cups, lunch ware, plastic bags, napkins for the year?

4. Can you refuse to idle your car at the ATM, school pick up, or any pick up?

5. Turn your lights and appliances off when not in use. Wash your clothes in only cold water?

6. Make a monthly donation to an environmental/conservation organization?

7. Skip meat one day or one meal per week.

8. If you do not currently recycle, find a program near you and get started.

9. Shift your media to electronic, skip on newspapers and printed materials.

10. Conserve water (shorter showers, flush your toilet less, can you skip on watering your lawn?)

Maybe someday the rest of us, with all our small changes, will warrant the cover of a magazine. “Top 6 billion planet savers of 2010?”

I think that the recycling bin is rolling around on the deck. It is very windy outside and I hear an occasional thud followed by a roll and then a thump. Then all is quiet until another gust of wind picks up and then the whole sequence starts again. Of course I am way to lazy to get up and determine if indeed this is what is happening. Especially since if the bin is actually rolling around on the deck it requires something of me that I am not willing to give at the moment. Getting up, going outside, and putting the bin back. I am currently under two blankets in my pajamas and am quite happy about that fact. There will be no bin fetching here.

The bummer is that this thud, roll, thump cadence will continue on and off until 4:00 AM when I have had it and then I will find myself outside in my bare feet on the deck grumbling and dragging that bin back into place. I’ll curse myself for being so lazy. And then I will probably walk through the house with my wet feet and leave footprints on the floor that will send me into a tizzie come morning. But right now I am warm and complacent and 4:00 AM is several hours away. That and maybe my husband will hear it when he comes to bed. He’s the smart type that will get up and take care of it right away. Handy to have around those logical engineer types.

Recycling bins aside, it is raining out and I LOVE that. I love Spring storms. Love the sound of thunder cracking across the clouds. Love the way the western sky looks when heavy gray clouds start to stack up on top of one another. I love when they swallow up the sun and start rumbling. Love the way everything smells like humidity and dirt and earth just before it rains. My heart soared the first time my oldest son looked at me and said “mommy, it smells like rain.”

In general, I actually prefer a rainy day to a sunny one (unless I have plans for the pool or something all sunshiny and classy like that). I love that rainy days do not ask much of me. They do not demand that my hair function well or that my wardrobe look all fresh and spring-like. Rainy days don’t care if I put my contacts in either. And they let me have at least one, and sometimes two, extra cups of coffee. It is spring in the midwest. So I am happy to hear the rain. It rarely thunders in January. Of course I am happy to have some warmth and hopscotch on the driveway again too. But I am especially happy to have thunder back.

I think what I love most about storms is what so many people love about them. The sheer magnitude of them. The absolute strength and might and awesomeness that comes from wind whipping itself up into a frenzy and unleashing everything from rain to hail down on the earth. And storms we cannot control (unless of course you are Bejing preparing for the olympics). We can chop down trees and clear cut forests, we can dig holes in the earth and redirect rivers. But we cannot control thunder, we cannot tame lightening. There is something marvelous yet horrifying about a thunder storm. And I love it. Makes me shudder.

My kids love them too. Oooooh, thunder mommy they say. They get all jumpy and antsy when it rains and we run to the window and we look outside like total geeks and it is simply mesmerizing. Of course at night it gets a little tricky because every clap of thunder is followed by a pregnant pause, one that is waiting for any number of footsteps to come toddling down the hall to say “I scared.” This typically ends up with one and then two of my three kids in bed with us. The baby, she’s on her own, sleeps through storms like a champ. The boys wiggle and elbow and bump and drive me nuts. For all of 30 seconds the thunder/jump into mom and dad’s bed thing is fun. I sigh and think “I will miss this someday, this is what motherhood is all about.” And then I get an elbow in the face or someone passes gas and then everyone is squirming and I am all cranky and want to sleep so I put them back to bed. Until another storm front passes through and the whole debacle starts again.

But at least they get to hear the rain. At least they get to know that they are small and this world is big. And that the Big God with the big thunder sends little drops of rain down to water this fragile little planet. And if I take the time to think about it, even the rain is marvelous. And even the rain needs protecting. Even the rain is tarnished with our activity. Call it acid rain or call it pollution, call it desertification where there once was rain and it no longer falls. Call it wild weather where tsunamis and tornadoes pop up where they should not. Call it flash floods. Call it climate change. Whatever it is, even the pure majestic awe struck moment of thunder ripping across the sky is tarnished by our earthly activities. 

I know this. And as I watch the lightening blink and flicker I sense that my laziness over the recycling bin is probably representative of more than just that bin. I’m a little lazy with my life. A little lazy with my decisions. A little lazy with my consumption. And the planet pays. The thunder pays. My kids pay. And so you would think as I make this conclusion that I would jump up and go get that bin, but I am going to bed now. I honestly am. I’m just that lazy.