New Year's Resolutions

There's a lot of Resolution Nay-Sayers out there, but I for one am all about them. I love the clean, fresh feeling of a new start on January 1st. I am never good at starting something new in the middle of a categorized time frame, whether it be a week or a month. Starting anew at the beginning of the year just feels right to me.

Some years I have a lot of resolutions; some years just one or two. Some are big, some are small. Here's a few resolutions I've made from years past (gathered from my nine years of 40 Questions).

- Washing the dinner dishes as we go, instead of letting them stack up
- Lose weight, get fit
- Get house back in order
- Read more books, write more poetry
- Maintain chore schedule, eat healthier diet, blog more, finish reading through the Bible, stop shouting/control anger
- Blog more
- Live simply, unmateriallistically, and not take on too many responsibilities
- Nothing (the year I had a two year old and a newborn!)

Some resolutions I was able to keep, at least for a little while. The hardest ones to keep for me are the healthy eating and getting control of my house types. I love food and I'm a scatterbrain. But I keep trying, year after year after year.

This year, I have a growing (it's allowed to grow for a few days into the new year, as long as I haven't utterly blown it already) list of resolutions. For 2014:

- Save lots of money. I want to see our savings account get super fat this year. We are working through our future plans, and all of these plans need money.
- Lose 15-20 lbs. This one is very specific, because I specifically want it to happen. I never lost my baby weight from having Jaguar, and I know I'm not healthy. A lot of it is thanks to being a little depressed and in the house all day with nothing to do but snack, so I'm on a mission. Scott and I are both back on the keto diet. Scott's done it before and lost a lot of weight. Unfortunately, he's annoying me already with his know-it-all advice. (Half a day on keto and I'm already feeling very grumpish.) (I just learned the word grumpish.)
- After losing said lbs, eat healthier and exercise more as a general thing
- Have lots of sex (part of exercising and getting healthy you see!). Also works wonders with the relationship!
- Drink more water. Occasional cups of tea and no more than one fizzy drink allowed a day.
- Love and listen to the children more and shout/punish less. I once read a great book which I am now re-reading called How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and How to Listen So Kids Will Talk. It's an excellent book. I haven't read it in a while, and now that my kids are older and in a different place than when I last read it, it's time for a refresher course. I don't like feeling like a bully when I'm with them. I'm their mother but not their dictator.

I talked to Fifi a little bit about New Year's Resolutions too. She wants to eat healthy food and be good. Aww. She's an extremely good kid. Lolly didn't want any part of it. So Lolly!