Ahh, New Year's resolutions. Something to be made every year, and broken a few weeks later... Everyone always starts out with such good intentions and valiant goals. I've read anywhere from 75-92% of people actually keep their new year's resolutions. So why even try? The odds are against me. It's a whole lot harder to actually do something than to just say I will.
Well I'm actually going to try. I've been making a couple of lists of things to do weekly and things to do daily. Most of the weekly stuff involves cleaning, etc. around the house, and most of the daily stuff is for my own personal fulfillment. So I'm going to list a few things here, and hope that by blogging about them I can keep up with them!
1. Daily devotions. Even if it's just reading a short page from a devotional book, I want to be in the Word every day. A former pastor of mine just launched a new video devotional called 30God, which I think will be a great jump-start to helping me think about God every day.
2. Exercise every day. I'm sure this is the most-often-named new year's resolution. Ok, maybe "lose weight" is the MOST common, but I'm more interested in just being healthy. It will be so much easier once spring comes and Abby and I can get out and walk again, but in the meantime I want to make a conscious effort to do something every day - even if it's just some sit-ups.
3. Read to Abby every day. I love books, and I want to encourage Abby to love to read too.
4. Meal plan. Ideally this will be something I'll do once a week, and plan what we're going to have for dinner every night for the next week. Then I can plan my grocery shopping accordingly, and not get to 6:00 at night and wonder hmm, what am I going to do for dinner? I at least want to have that day's dinner planned by noon so I can get any prep work out of the way or meat out of the freezer etc.
5. Keep track of finances. I've done well with this off and on, keeping track of what we spend and such, but never for a whole year. We've always been ok with our spending, etc. and I've never truly created a budget to work from each month, but I know the simple task of recording where our money goes does help us not spend as much.
So there we go. Five things, all very doable. Some daily, some weekly (I won't bore you with all the weekly cleaning tasks I want to accomplish). Can I stick with it? Be part of the 8-25% who actually stick with their resolutions? We'll see...
Do you have any resolutions for the new year?
My new years resolution is an odd one. Tim wants me to do strength training for my knee and work my way up to doing another 5k in the spring. We'll see about that. No, my resolution is to dress up more. I have all these nice clothes that I never wear anymore because I don't work in a place where I need to. Why is this resolution important? Looking good equates to feeling good for me. I figure if I look good more often, I'll feel good more often. I suppose you could say that this resolution is more to feel good than to look good and looking good is just a tool, but looking good is something I can actually work on, feeling good is a little too abstract. How does one measure feeling good? You can't, so you measure the frequency of the things that make you feel good. Anyway, this sounds simple, but for me will be a chore. I'm lazy. Getting pretty takes time and I'd rather be reading I book.
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