2011 Resolutions

^^ Boring title so that at the end of the year when I need to find this post I can search it and find it easily. ;)

The week between Christmas and New Years is usually insanely busy, and normally I start thinking about New Years resolutions around noon on the 31st of December. I start to feel the pressure to come up with the PERFECT resolutions and then don't come up with anything. So I decided to take the pressure off myself this year. My New Years resolution was "come up with a list of resolutions by January 31st." Procrastination to the extreme.

So, without further ado, my 2011 resolutions are:

1) Do the 30 Day Shred for 30 days.

STILL haven't done it from start to finish. I may regret this one.

2) Run a 5k.

On my own. There's no way I'm entering a real race. I may regret this one even more.

3) Make a quilt for Ben.

4) Make 3 skirts.

5) Grow a vegetable in a pot and eat it.

I have a brown thumb. I started out last spring with excellent intentions and even had some veggies-in-progress, but then Ben came along and I sort of neglected my green babies for my real baby.

6) Have a spend-free month.

Minus gas and a small amount for groceries. I'll have to stay out of Target.

7) Make an Advent calendar.

I decided a week before Thanksgiving that I was going to make an Advent calendar like Jill's. Bad plan. I think I'll start in July this year.

8) Do one "craft project" a week with Nate.

Even if it involves something as little as coloring or Play-doh. Just something.

9) Make one baked good a week.

From scratch. Pillsbury cookies don't count.

10) Take better pictures.

Or more pictures. I'm challenging myself to shoot in manual more and to really get comfortable with my camera. Take both the boys' 1- and 2-year-old pictures.

11) Go to adoration once a month.

Without my children.

12) Read a new book every month.

Are You My Mother? doesn't count.

13) Set goals.

Daily goals, weekly goals, monthly goals. Specific things I want and need to accomplish. More specific than this list.

14) Lighten up.

Yes, really. And not stress about little things so much.

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Some of them are a little more specific than others, but it gives me a starting point. I haven't included all the financial and spiritual goals in this list since I tend to be a bit more private about those, but I have some of those too! I'm excited. Go 2011.

(Keepin' it real: Today I did nothing that would even remotely make it on a to-do list. Not.even.joking.)

(Wait, I take that back. I bathed my children. And myself. That might make it on a list. Maybe. A chore chart, at least.)

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Something happened with my formatting and I'm not sure what. I really do know how to hyphenate but I can't figure out when new lines start and end. But I'm NOT GONNA SPEND 30 MINUTES TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO FIX IT. It's part of the not stressing about little things.

Mind Clutter

Even though I took a several-month hiatus from blogging (hrm... again...), I still kept up with reading my usual (approximately 24) blogs for the most part (but not commenting, I didn't have the mental energy for that...). I also discovered several new blogs with many pearls of great wisdom that begged to be bookmarked. As I stumbled across 3 more today, I finally had to compose myself, remember that there are many, many women in this world with lovely ideas and inspirational words, remind myself that all the inspirational words in the world cannot substitute for DOING, and close all my tabs.

The internet can be a dangerous thing, especially for a stay-at-home mom who craves connection with the "outside world" and who loves the eye candy that craft and decorating blogs deliver. I find myself spending hours scouring blogs and reading friends' Facebook updates, and while I may leave my computer chock-full of bright ideas and completely up-to-date on my friends' comings and goings of the day, I have not DONE anything. I find myself wishing to "be like them," the moms who write the blogs who do a sewing project every day, or who cook 93 gourmet meals for under $150 a month (coupons!), or who take fantastic pictures of their adorable blonde children that are magazine-worthy. But by reading about their lives, I AM NOT BEING LIKE THEM. I am simply unconsciously tearing myself down because I'm not as creative, or as thrifty, or as talented as they are, or as they appear to be on their blog.

I am filling my mind with clutter. It's not bad clutter - it's usually good, useful clutter - but still, clutter. Just like my closet might have 50 shirts that are too small for me now - the shirts aren't bad in themselves, and I may even be able to wear some of them again someday, but right now, they're just taking up space and making me feel bad about my post-pregnancy belly. And so the blogs take up time and energy to read and make me feel bad about my lack of productivity.

I will admit it. I'm not going to stop reading blogs, nor am I going to stop being on Facebook. I AM going to be more mindful of how much time I spend online, and how I spend that time. I want to be more reflective, to nourish my real-life relationships with my children and my husband, to cook more, to craft more, to pray more, to LIVE more. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, I want to be "more present to those whom I encounter in my everyday life."

(I still haven't posted my New Years' Resolution list. My goal was to have it finished by January 31. That's tomorrow... eep. Gotta get crackin'! I have a very good explanation for why I am compiling it a month late. It sort of involves a little word spelled "y-z-a-l". backwards.)

Time Flies When You're Having Fun...

So the saying goes.

I've been having trouble taming the flurry of thoughts in my head and organizing them into a somewhat coherent, succinct post, so of course, I abandoned my blog once again. Good thing my blog can't abandon ME - it's always here when I decide to come back. (Unless Blogger decides to pull it for inactivity. I don't think they do that, though?)

We FLEW through Advent and Christmas, and I felt like I couldn't catch my breath, and then, it was all over. I hate that feeling. I struggle with wanting to celebrate the season of Advent solemnly, ignoring the secular world which tells us that the Christmas season begins on Black Friday and ends at 10pm on Christmas Day. So we don't decorate for Christmas until well into the month of December, and that just seems to make it zip by even faster. And my goal to celebrate Advent more this year failed pretty miserably. I felt like I had my head in the clouds the whole month. Ah well, there's always next year...

I have decided to finally finish the ol' bachelor's degree. I really should have continued going to school when we got married, but at the time I was perfectly content with my nice little Liberal Arts AA degree diploma framed on our wall, and had no further plans to continue my education after I found out we were expecting Nate, who was due in May, which would make it impractical for me to take spring classes since HE MIGHT BE BORN EARLY AND I WOULD MISS FINALS! (The babe was born 4 days late on May 28th. Finals were well over at that point.) But something has been tugging at me recently, and I finally feel that desire again to finish up those last few classes and to have the degree COMPLETE. Granted, it won't happen in just a semester or two, since I am only going part-time, but I am hoping to complete it by December 2012 (which really is technically NEXT YEAR!) The classes are online and completely doable while the kids are napping or in bed.

Because the classes in my major were already full, I am taking upper-level electives this semester since I need BUNCHES of them. Two art classes - an art history class and a photography class (the technical aspects of photography, not so much the "putting into practice" aspects, although this will certainly help with that as well.) I am already surprised at the very little amount of coursework we have for the semester and sort of wishing I had decided to take another class or two, but now I know for next time. I forget that the last time I was in college I was also working 55 hours a week and taking a full course load, along 90 minute round-trip commutes each day. Compared to that, having a baby and a toddler seems like a piece of cake (in terms of having free time!)

I'm hoping this will challenge me, stimulate my mind, help me to budget my time better and stick to more of a routine, and blah blah blah (all the other things people say when they talk about doing something that is supposed to be "self-fulfilling.") But really, I just want to learn something new.

Oh yeah, we have snow now! We got our first REAL snowfall of the year last week (the half-inch on Christmas Eve didn't count according to the meteorologists) and an additional 6 inches fell last night. We are way behind the rest of the country in our snowfall accumulation this year, but I personally am fine with that. (Come on, Spring!) Nate went out to play in the snow for the first time today. Sledding at my parents' house with Brian & my siblings - he wasn't exactly sure what to think about the cold, but he didn't cry, and that's always a good thing!

and my cute little Ben-Ben in the boys' bedroom - sitting up and growing fast!

Time to write this blog post: 1 hour 15 minutes
Interruptions by crying children who are in bed for the night: 6

Number of children still awake in their beds: 1

My analysis: This could be a long night...