Why She`s Feeling Stronger (And Sexier!) Than Ever. Plus - Jen`s To-Do List For 2006. If anyone has made a fresh start, it`s Jennifer Aniston. Hollywood`s most eligible bachelorette will make a splash in no less than three new movies in 2006 - but first comes a long overdue siesta in Mexico.

  Click. That`s the sound Jennifer Aniston`s salt-rimmed margarita glass makes as she toasts the glorious Mexican sun, blue skies and moving on. She lounges on a well-cushioned patio chair at Las Ventanas al Paraíso resort in Los Cabos, a platter of homemade chips, salsa and guacamole before her and the aquamarine Sea of Cortez beyond. Aniston has something of the sea, too, in her babyblue eyes. She sports flip-flops on her feet and tiny green sweatshorts and a black tank top on her impossibly lithe 5-goot-6 frame. ``I love the sun, I love the sand, I love the water,`` she says, breathing in this divine slice of tranquility.

  Lately Aniston has been spending time in the company of Vince Vaughn, but he wasn`t around for this getaway. Instead she has two of her best buddies in tow, and they`re all doing the girl thing: laughing, dancing to soul music on their iPods, getting pampered, playing ruthless games of Scrabble, and enjoying the local tequila. Part fiesta, part siesta - fully fun. And ``fun`` would be the operative word atop Aniston`s 2006 to-do list.

  A gold necklace dangles from her bronzed neck, a gift from friends. She fingers its charm, which she adores because it incorporates good-luck symbols from around the world - an owl, an elephant, a horseshoe. ``I`m a very lucky girl,`` she says, smiling. And she means it. There is no rehashing of the B-word today. There is only a 36-year-old woman excited about what the future holds - and eager to leave the past behind. ``I feel good to have everybody moving on from it,`` she says of her divorce from Brad Pitt.

  Part of Aniston`s fresh start entailed throwing herself into her work. She filmed four movies back-to-back, including the just out Rumor Has It with Mark Ruffalo, Kevin Costner and Shirley MacLaine. She plays a New York Times obituary writer who returns home for her sister`s wedding and discovers that her family may have been the basis for the movie The Graduate, meaning that her grandmother (MacLaine) would be Mrs. Robinson - thirty-something years later. Ask Aniston what she`d want her own obit to say and she says, ``She had fun until... ya know... the end.`` But then she wants to amend that thought: ``If we can say, `I loved, and I received a lot of love,` then great. That`s enough.``

  There was certainly a lot of love from co-stars like MacLaine on the set of Rumor Has It as countless of headlines began documenting the drama of Aniston´s personal life. (Aniston jokes that she immediately felt as though she had known MacLaine for ´´several lifetimes.´´) ´´I have maternal feelings towards her,´´ says the Hollywood legend. ´´Everything had hit, and it was just national news on a level that´s not fair to anybody. Jennifer´s emotional discipline to keep it together was really extraordinary. I don´t know how she did it. She´s remarkably levelheaded about the love she still feels in her heart after having been hurt.´´

  Says one of Aniston´s oldest friends, actress Andrea Bendewald, who is a part of Aniston´s vacation posse and a close confidante since their days together at the High School for the Performing Arts in New York City, ´´Jennifer has done some rebuilding, restructuring, realigning - and she came out this beautiful woman who is standing up tall and happy and full. I thought she was amazing two years ago, but now I look at her and say, ´Slow down! You´re gonna start levitating soon, you´re so happy.´´

  Indeed, instead of coming out with her story, Aniston went in with it. She worked on herself both in therapy and in gym. Her current exercise regimen includes hatha yoga four times a week, and other days she works out on an elliptical trainer. She eats three meals a day, low on carbs, heavy on salmon, and has steak three times a week. She watches what she eats but doesn´t diet and notes that the workouts allow her the occasional indulgence - her favorite is a double cheeseburger with onions at In & Out. Right now she´s polishing off the guacamole but insists it´s not as good as her own recipe - not that she´ll share it. ´´I´d have to kill you,´´ she deadpans.

  The only time Aniston seems to lose her trademark sense of humor is when it comes to the paparazzi, who checked into the hotel and are currently lurking about - Aniston understands the fascination - to a degree. ´´God knows I´ve picked up People magazine to go, like, ´God, what happened to Jessica and Nick?´ ´´ she says. She won´t go into detail about her much photographed relationship with Vaughn, but she does say it took nearly a year of hard work and soul-searching to get to the place where her heart was ready for romance. ´´I didn´t ever walk out with the intention of ´I gotta start dating again,´ ´´ she says. ´´You just wake up one day and you start to feel like, Yeah, I think I´m open to that now. It´s not mapped out. It just sort of happened.´´

  There will be more love in her life; there will be children. (´´Ideally I´d like to have a couple, but who knows? That´s part of the unknown that I like.´´) There will be plenty of getaways with her pals. This visit to Cabos is telling, because the first time she came here was when ´´my husband at the time´´ threw her a lavish 30th birthday party. He may have introduced her to this spot but she´s reclaiming it. And one thing´s for sure: She cried no more. ´´I read this great quote somewhere: ´I don´t have any regrets, just great experiences.´ And that´s so true. That is the point.´´

• Wet And Wild
    ´´Mexican food is a brilliant indulgence,´´ says Aniston. How does she wash it down? ´´I love margaritas, martinis and cold, cold beer.´´

• Mexico Is The New Malibu
    ´´This is one of my favorite spots - I´m addicted,´´ Aniston says of Cabos San Lucas, where she usually opts to rent a house in the hills but this time checked into the Las Ventanas resort.

• Life´s (Not) A Beach
    ´´I don´t like going in the ocean - Jews screwed me up pretty bad.´´

• Chilling Out
    ´´I´ve never been able to do that Zen kind of thing with a hundred sweaty people in the room - I´d rather meditate on my own,´´ Aniston says of her preference for private yoga sessions - and peaceful moments like this.

• Easy Rider
    ``I like to seize my moments,`` says Aniston, who proved this point by hijacking an ATV and taking it for an impromptu spin up and down the beach.

    ´´We only have one life, and we´re here for such a short period of time - you´d better have a blast with the person you´re with.´´

    ´´If you don´t take times to recharge, you´re gonna drive yourself into the ground - and then your life goes by too fast and there´s nothing. I haven´t always lived by this motto, but I really don´t want to be one of those people who live to work. I want to work to live.´´

    ´´I´ve learned that you can get through things that hurt. My pain was real, but nothing will kill you. Nothing. People are unbelievable. We have such resilience.´´

  Jen´s To-Do List
  
  

    ´´I don´t make resolutions,´´ says Aniston. ´´I try not to say anything I can´t back up because we all take steps backwards.´´ Still, she does have a few things she´d like to accomplish in 2006:

• 1. Buy A House
     I vacillate between building a house and just remodeling one. I´m a beach person - I´m an Aquarian. So the house will hopefully be looking toward water. And I want it to be comfortable on every level, from the inside out. I love windows, and I love to see the elements. I´m into all-white right now with lots of textures - white corduroy, white chenille, white suede. Kind of a clean state.

• 2. Hit The Books
    I´m not a great reader, and I hate to say that. It´s hard for me to sit still that long, and if I read at night I fall asleep, but I have the great intention to read more books. Also I want to start a journal again - I´ve been on and off with it. I had a boyfriend who read my journal, like, 15 years ago, and it bummed me out. Now I find myself writing cryptically, not writing full names, as though someday somebody will dig this up.

• 3. Settle Down
    I hope to be on the road to having a family in the next year. I´ve said this before and I desperately don´t want to repeat myself, but I just like being in a partnership.

• 4. Take A Holiday
    I want to go back to Greece. I lived there for a year when I was little, but I´ve only gone back once, a few years ago, and I thought, Why have I not been back? I grew up with my dad´s side of the family - all the Greeks in Philadelphia - and there´s something about connecting with your heritage. I also want to go back to the Caribbean and to Italy. I´ve never been to Venice and Florence. That´s a good couple of spots.

• 5. Produce A Film
    I want to produce this film I fell in love with. I don´t want to say the name because I don´t want to jinx it. I haven´t felt this excited or passionate about something in a long time. I want to be in it, and I´m thrilled about getting my hands in all areas. The movie is already in the works, so hopefully we´ll get it made sometime this year.

• 6. Live It Up
    There´s a period of your life when there´s that drive to get established and to work, work, work. Like you don´t even have the option to say, ´No - I need time to myself.´ Not that I overworked this last year: Two of the movies were three-weeks jobs, one was two months, and one was four month. I was lucky that I knocked out a couple of good ones in a short time. But now I´m going to make downtime a priority. I´m not saying I want to be on vacation all the time, but there´s a lot to see and learn about this world.