It’s that time again. The new year is coming, and it’s time to dig out all those old resolutions and see how many of them we were able to keep. I checked. I probably kept none of them.

However, I have a new resolution for next December. I resolve not to shop for groceries two days before Christmas with a snowstorm doom and gloom on the horizon.

I didn’t Christmas shop this year. I wanted to simplify, save money and make my gifts. I did pretty well. I did experience the mall on the same day I shopped for groceries, but only to make use of a few $10 certificates that I had to use before Dec. 25. I found a sale on the shoes and so I got shoes for free and lotion for free. It was a quick trip in and out of the stores as I knew what I wanted for my free coupons.

I could not avoid buying groceries for Christmas dinner. I bravely entered the store, picked up a cart and it was downhill from there. I had my list but there was nothing easy about negotiating those aisles. I felt like I was on the freeway dodging traffic.

If I could get into an aisle I had to follow the flow. There was no passing as there were oncoming motorists hanging tightly to their carts. I tried to get off on my exit at the cake mix, the juices, and the baking products only to find I missed my exit because there was no stopping. I either had to grab the brass ring as I was walking past or I had to find a place to park and go back down the center of the traffic without my cart to snag my goodies.

I usually like to wander down the store aisles looking at the new products. Once in awhile one of them entices me to try them and my grocery bill ends up bigger then I had planned. But there was no enticing on this trip. I wanted out fast; only that wasn’t going to happen either.

The snowstorm plus Christmas had everyone in a panic. The shelves were starting to look like we hadn’t eaten in years and were emptying fast. The clerks patiently helped people find their products in the midst of the traffic.

There is the up side to this grocery shopping trip and that is I spent very little money. I only got the essentials that were on my list because there was no time for dawdling.

I know part of the rush was Christmas and part of the rush was the snowstorm. We seem to rush out and stock up because we are afraid if we get stranded in our houses we are going to run out of food. We probably would since most of us don’t have freezers that are stocked from top to bottom. We let our cupboards get bare because we know we can visit the grocery store at any hour. We are so used to convenience that we panic if we are going to be snowed in for days. We aren’t prepared.

In the “olden days” we used to be prepared. Stores were closed at night and on Sundays. We were used to going a few days without stores being open. People grew their own vegetables and canned them. We were more self sufficient. Of course, the weather service wasn’t as prepared in those days, and we weren’t always informed of storms days ahead of time so we didn’t have time to panic.

Even though I haven’t been very reliable when it does come to New Year’s resolutions perhaps the one resolution I should make is to be more prepared. I am not talking about just groceries but slowing down, taking a breath and little by little making the changes that would allow me to take a breath and not panic when something unexpected comes my way.

Happy New Year. Good luck with any resolutions that you make. Don’t let a snowstorm throw you but avoid the grocery store at all costs when a snowstorm is coming. The life you save may be your own.

Wells resident Julie Seedorf’s column appears every Monday. Send e-mail to her at thecolumn@bevcomm.net .Her blog is paringdown.wordpress.com. Listen to KBEW AM radio 1:30 p.m. Sundays for “Something About Nothing.”