New Year's Resolutions

It's already halfway through January, and Tommy and I still haven't talked about our New Year's resolutions for 2015. We usually try to do it for FHE at the beginning of the year, but we have had so many things to tackle and discuss with the house and buying a car and changing credit cards and all of these super-boring adult life decisions that this has fallen through the cracks. However, I have still thought of a few things I would like to implement this year. I usually come up with 25 resolutions that I want to tackle and end up failing at most of them--but I'm only going to do a few this year since I imagine things are really going to be changing in my life come April and I may have some new goals after that happens. But for now, this is what I've been thinking about.

Count to ten and take a deep breath before getting angry. I always think, "Oh, I want to be more patient, lah di dah," but that is not a very specific goal. I feel like I generally do a good job of keeping my head on straight with Dane, but I still lose my temper far too many times a day with him, especially when I am tired or annoyed with something else. It has been so obvious to me, though, how my behavior towards him affects his behavior towards me. When I am short with him or get angry really fast, he acts out more and more--but when I am patient and can redirect his attention or distract him, he stays calm--or we BOTH stay calm. It's really all up to me. He responds to my cues. So this goal is in hopes that I will be able to keep my cool more often instead of getting mad when he won't eat his dinner. It won't be easy though--because when I'm mad, it feels GOOD to be mad and show how mad I am (which is, of course, super dangerous). It's always the regret afterwards that kills.

Read my scriptures first thing during naptime. Naptime is my one free space during the day, and once Dane is in his room, usually, the first thing I do is grab the computer and veg out for ten minutes. I hate wasting time, but I do think it's okay to do something mindless like that when it relaxes me--as long as it doesn't go too long or keep me from doing what I really want to accomplish during his nap. But I think this could be a great habit for me if I grab my scriptures instead of my computer after coming out from Dane's room. I want to do it first, because if I get sucked into working or reading something else, I'm not likely to stop that to do it later. This isn't an easy one either, because lots of times, I really don't WANT to do it and I consciously decide not to grab my scriptures because I want to do nothing. One I start, of course, it is worth it. I am currently reading the Book of Mormon, focusing on learning about characteristics of Christ and Heavenly Father, and it is really, really great. I know that naptime is going to be significantly different over the course of the year--baby #2 will interfere with my blessed solitude, I know, and Dane may stop napping altogether this year (nooo!), but for now, this is a good goal for me.

Write about tender mercies in my journal once a week. I wrote about one thing I was grateful for in my journal every day in the month of November, and I LOVED it. I found myself searching for what I was grateful for and writing a lot about each of those things. I kind of ran out of steam by the end of the month though, but I want to do something similar this year--to try and write about little blessings or tender mercies I experience day to day. I don't want my journal to be just "this is what I did today"--I want to focus on the things that will be significant to me in the future when I look back so that I can remember how we have been so blessed.

Get our house in order before the baby comes. I don't even know if this is possible. I love, love, love our house. But we have a page-long list of things to do with our house--most of them little, but most of them I can't do by myself, and I am dying, dying to get them done before baby comes. The bigger issue is that we have basically no furniture still, so we have a lot of expenses just waiting to happen until we can get what we want. I really loathe spending money, but I would love to have all of our big items checked off the list--pictures hanging on the walls, new couches, some sort of sitting area in our bedroom, baby's room cleared out and organized. I don't even have big dreams of painting or decorating a nursery super cute; I just want to put everything in its place and put away. I don't think that's too much to ask, and we've got 3 months left to do it all (cross your fingers!).

Figure out our budget and stick to it. We have been experimenting with budgeting a lot since Tommy started his job, because all of a sudden we actually have a little more money than we just need to live off of. And with all the recent (and I'm sure, continuing) expenses with buying a house, I am making it my goal to make sure we are SAVING a high percentage of that instead of spending willy-nilly. We've been using mint.com and it is very helpful, although I kind of hate it because we still seem to go over EVERY MONTH. But we are still working on it and figuring out how much we really need to spend on things every month, and I think things will settle down in a few months and we'll be right where we should be.

Be kind to myself after the baby comes. I want to make sure I keep exercising as much as I can before the baby comes, because it is SO helpful for me mentally and makes me feel productive and somewhat human. And I know I will want to exercise pretty soon after baby is born, for all the same reasons. But I am not going to fall into the trap of dying to "get my body back" six weeks after he is born. It is not realistic, ever, for anyone, and especially won't be for me this time with two little friends to watch after. I am deciding now that I will allow myself to just do what I need to and not worry about getting into a bathing suit (although it is a bummer that the baby will be born in April and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have a toddler who will want to go swimming pretty soon after that).


This is not a hefty list--but I think they are little things that I can accomplish that will make my life better over the year. If I can stick to these, I will feel like I'm making progress in my life.