How to have a miserable year.

Podcasts are my new best-friend. I hear they've been around awhile, but so have I, which means I missed the techno-wave. I am slow on the Mp3-uptake. But, as us middle-aged gals like to say - better late than never.

I recently downloaded to my Ipod, fourteen days worth of sermons and teachings from a few of my favorite pastors: Dr. John Macarthur, Chuck Swindoll, Dr. Charles Stanley, and Steve Madsen. With my snazzy new Ipod attachment-thingy for the car, my husband  is forced gets to listen to my favorites too.

While taking a scenic drive a few days ago, Pastor Chuck Swindoll taught us the five ways to have a miserable year. I helped him out below by expounding a bit on his one-liners. You too can be miserable! Great advice if you're into misery.

Which I'm not.

But, if you are, here are a few ways to make absolutely, positively sure you get your new year started off on the wrong foot.

(Cliche is one way this writer just did.)

(Talking in the third-person is another.)

Five Ways to Have a Miserable Year

1. Worry. ALOT. Start with the morning newspaper or your network news. Sit for awhile and drag out of your mom-bank all your recent parenting failures. Dwell on your weight, job, security, aging.

2. Fix attention on getting rich. Make sure to stay up late watching all infomercials that promise to make you a millionaire in two weeks or less. Add a dash of pizzaz to your infomercial evening by reminding your husband how little he earned last year.

3. Compare yourself with others - especially the ones with the most money and the smallest sized jeans. And don't forget to focus on the moms at school who look like they could be your daughters.

4. Lengthen your list of enemies. It isn't enough that your cousin on your uncles, neighbors side doesn't like you. You can irritate and anger more than her. Be an over-achiever at the next family gathering and tell people what you really think.

5. Cling to unrealistic expectations. Make this the year you vow to lose 200 lbs by your high school reunion this summer, write the novel you've always wanted to write in less than a week, or have your whole house remodeled by Valentines Day.

Make sure to write all of the above in ink.  For you Type A personalities, tattoo on your forearm.