Resolutions

Normally I don't make New Year resolutions. But in reflecting back on the past year I do have some goals that I would like to work towards in the upcoming days. I'm sure that I will come short on many of these, but I hope that putting them out there will give me some extra incentive to succeed.

1. Make Housework Manageable. I know I went into this one in my last post, but I really DO want to do better with this. When we got back from traveling, I took the opportunity of Matt having an extra day off (we had to cut our OH trip short due to an upcoming storm that would have made the drive difficult), to clean out the closet in Emmaline & Maxton's room. The closet in their room is mainly just used for storage. We have boxes of books, DVDs, some school supplies, and other random items. It's also the place where I stash things away that I intend to donate until we get around to dropping them off at either Goodwill or the Crisis Pregnancy Center. The closet was a wreck. Things piled everywhere. But I cleaned it out. And the very act of cleaning it was cathartic. It felt SO good to get it looking nice and organized. I can WALK in there now. I can FIND everything. I want to continue working on the rest of the house, little by little, and get it all in the same shape. We have SO MUCH STUFF that just needs to find a better spot in our home or find a new home altogether!

2. Start Running Again. I used to run cross country way back in high school. That seems like ages and ages ago. The thing is that I really ENJOY running. It's nice to just be alone with your own thoughts for a while. I'm not even wanting to do it really so much for the health benefits (although that is definitely a bonus), but rather just to get a little bit more "me" time in each day. I have no intention (at this point) of running marathons or anything like that. Just running for the love of it.

3. Read More. I used to read. A lot. I DEVOURED books. But as I've become more and more busy I find that I don't often pick up a book consistently. But I want to change that. My goal is to read at LEAST one book a month. Hopefully more, but like with the cleaning, I want something manageable. Right now I'm reading The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff. It was a random splurge "purchase" I made when I was picking up some books at the library for the kids to use for school. The checkout line was long and I got stuck into one of the fiction aisles, saw it and decided to bring it home too. I've always been intrigued by polygamy (like why any women would consent to share her husband and psychological impact it must have on those women). So far, I'm enjoying it.

4. Advance in Sewing. I want to learn new techniques and in general get better at sewing. I really enjoy sewing. Immensely. So it's no surprise that I want to do more of it. However, sewing can be an expensive hobby, so that's why my goal is to attempt new skills rather than just do mass projects.

So that's my resolutions for the year. I feel that there should be a 5th, but honestly I only want to add one on for balance, so I purposefully won't! In overlooking them, it appears that the common thread between most of them (all but the first), is doing more things to make ME happy. But I think it's about time that I had a "selfish" year.