Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
New year, new me.
It’s a common saying these days, especially on social media. As the calendar changes to 2019, people try to change or improve something about their lives with a New Year’s resolution.
And while more than half of the 20-plus people approached for this story said they aren’t setting a resolution for 2019, several eastern New Mexico residents told The News that they are getting in the New Year’s spirit, and if their answers are any indication, expect to see a few extra people at the gym.
“Health and weight. Just to be healthy,” Linda Flores, 58, of Muleshoe said was her resolution for the new year.
She told The News that every year she tries to set a resolution but “I always break it.” Flores couldn’t remember for certain, but she thinks losing weight was probably what she set out to do last January too.
“Hopefully it will work this time,” she said.
Adopting a healthier lifestyle is a typical New Year’s resolution and something that apparently appeals to all ages.
“(I want) to eat better so I don’t get fat,” Benjamin Shaw, 10, of Clovis, told The News.
“I’ll work out more. I have to because I’m a cheerleader and I have to pick up girls and I can’t do it,” Natalie Lopez, 13, of Clovis said.
M. J. Niederhouser, 8, from Levelland, told The News that she had a resolution for the new year, but admitted it might be “a little weird.”
“I’m trying to read the whole New Testament in one year, then I might do the Old Testament,” she said.
M.J. said she was inspired to set this resolution — probably her first one ever — by her sister who read the entire Book of Mormon. That, and she wants to complete a feat that she can tell her future children about.
Jeanna Joplin, 36, of Clovis, told The News that she has a practical resolution, as she hopes to further her career as a photographer.
“I just want to shoot more and try to take pictures every day. I just want to improve my craft and see the world a little differently,” she said.
Joplin said that while historically she’s only about “2 percent successful” in completing her resolutions, she did so this past year when she learned how to make Eggs Benedict, her goal for 2018.
Vincent Soule, 28, of Clovis, also set a very realistic task for the new year.
“I’m going to avoid having to scribble out 2018 and put 2019 on everything from here on out,” he said. “Because I’ve failed at weight loss and everything else so I’m trying to be realistic. I don’t like it but I’ll deal with what I have.”
Tony Westley, 17, of Clovis, takes a bit of a unique approach to New Year’s resolutions, something he said he has always done.
“Honestly I kind of just put away a New Year’s resolution and my focus is just on being a better person in general,” Westley said. “I focus on not making a New Year’s resolution that’s unobtainable but making a resolution that’s just making me look better in the eye of just anybody who looks at me or talks to me.”
Not everybody plans to set a resolution — many said they just hadn’t thought about it yet — though others had more specific reasons for abstaining from the practice.
“We don’t really do New Year’s resolutions. I just generally try to make changes as I find they’re necessary,” Danielle Cavazos, 33, of Portales, said.
Andrea Altman, 36, of Clovis, said she appreciates Chinese New Year’s with the parades, lanterns, streamers, fireworks and food, but doesn’t get into the western New Year’s festivities, which she described as basically an excuse to stay up all night drinking alcohol.
“I actually don’t care or consider it a holiday whatsoever,” Altman said. “In fact it makes me frustrated me that stores will be closed and that too many people will be drinking and putting others in danger. A new year comes every year.”