Resolutions

Having had a little time to reflect on the new year, and what it may mean for me and my family, it's time to break out the resolutions. I hope that just maybe putting them here might help me stick with them. They are all things I have wanted to undertake in my life before now, and I'm trying to take the new year, the new leaf, the new beginning that I feel every time the calendar flips another page, as an opportunity for self-improvement. For LIFE improvement.

So, here goes. In 2008, it is my hope and resolution to undertake the following:

1. Lose The Weight. I have about 20 pounds that I want to lose. There's a lot wrapped up with this. First and most importantly, I don't feel terribly healthy, and getting more active - thereby losing The Weight - will help with that. Second, I don't care for the way I look with all this extra weight, and there's a good half of my wardrobe that I don't fit into right now (the flattering half). Third, and perhaps paradoxically, I want to have another baby this year, and I want to be healthy for the pregnancy (I say paradoxically because I talk about wanting to fit into my old clothes while the very next sentence is all about NOT fitting into my old clothes).

People who know me have all heard this, but The Weight isn't pregnancy weight from my daughter. That all came off fairly easily, especially since I was so active during my maternity leave. The Weight is going-back-to-work weight. When I went back to work, I combined an unhealthy brew of depression as a result of going back to work and missing my girl, worry about not being able to keep up professionally, stress from co-workers who just knew I couldn't keep up professionally, stress and worry over trying to continue pumping to give my baby the breast milk I struggled to provide for her, a sudden loss of daily exercise, and cheap candy purchased the day after Halloween in an ill-timed trip to Target. I kept bemoaning the easy access to candy, but when my colleagues would advise me to just put it in the kitchen at the office and get rid of it that way, I would whimper, "But it makes me happy." It's the most pathetic thing ever, but I'll admit it was not a highlight for me.

Anyway, there's so much around The Weight for me. The feeling of unattractiveness, the daily inability to control what I eat and rage at that lack of control, the rationalization every single decision ("I so deserve that chocolate/pizza/taco/other horrible item of food/extra hour of sleep."), the corrosive envy I have of the way my sister has managed to lose the weight she wanted to. Wanting to have another baby, and not wanting to do it like this. Feeling like a fat cow most days, and a lazy one to boot.

So, losing The Weight is a huge thing for me. I want to make some changes to my diet, mostly involving cooking more and eating out less. This is just a matter of getting my ass off the couch and into the kitchen and becoming a better - and faster- cook. I think it will happen just by dint of more practice, seriously. The second, and more important, part of losing The Weight is getting more active. When I was at my fittest, I was working out with a trainer twice a week, and by myself at least once or twice more. That was before I started working the kind of job I do now, but I think I can fit some exercise in if I sacrifice some sleep. The last month has reminded me how much I can do on how little sleep, and while I don't want to grind myself down to that level, losing an hour of sleep on an average day will not kill me, nor significantly impact my productivity. I'm not thinking of days that I'm working until 2 a.m., but that's not the norm. I'm thinking of days when I would normally get 7 or 8 hours of sleep, maybe getting up an hour earlier, or going to bed a little sooner.

Now, I know myself well enough to know that the allure of fitting into that Italian skirt I haven't worn since before Caetlin is not much of a motivation when we're looking at a warm bed versus a cold and lonely and boring walk. So I'm trying a new tactic this year: I'm trying to remind myself that I don't want to die. Psychological and cosmetic effects of losing The Weight aside, I don't want to have a heart attack or stroke at the age of 31. Or 32. Or 33. You get the idea. I want to see my daughter and other children grow up. I don't want to have the tragedy of, "She was so young," whispered at my funeral.

So I am trying to motivate myself every morning with the reminder that I don't want to die. I hope that works for me. I'm also trying another thing, which is to walk every day that I work, and give myself the weekends off. While I might want to use the weekends as catch up, I think that is a bad idea- I have had the conversation with myself so many times, "If I don't get up this morning, I can still work out tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday, and meet my goals for the week." I want to cut that off at the pass, by trying to save the weekend as true days off, including from the workouts that I hate so much.

So there is that. That's a big #1, for all the reasons I've listed up there.

1a. Get the music files off my Ipod somehow, so I can load new music without erasing what's already there. Because of Apple's ridiculous file-sharing protections, I cannot load the songs on my Ipod (100% of which were on CDs that I owned) onto the new hard drive I have since the old one went kaput. Yeah, yeah, I should have them backed up. The thing is: I DID. It's called MY IPOD, which is a hard drive that I own just as much as the CDs. Jeez. Stupid Apple. I have recovery CDs from my old hard drive, and I'll see how much, if any, of my music made it. But otherwise I, the least techy person ever, am going to have to take a crack at hacking my Ipod, because the only thing that makes walking in the cold and dark of early morning by myself bearable is music and podcasts, and I'm working through what's on the Ipod already at a rapid pace.

2. Attend to better dental hygiene. Okay, before everyone is grossed out, I brush an appropriate number of times a day (at least twice) and floss reasonably regularly. Here's the thing: I HATE flossing. It's just annoying and I hate doing it (you can admit it- I'm not the only one). So I'm more prone to letting myself skip that step, and I want to stop being such a slacker. My teeth are in great shape, according to my dentist, but I want to be even more diligent about flossing, get more particular about flossing technique, and start using a Listerine-type germ-killing mouthwash for better gum health.

3. In the same vein, start being more diligent about taking my contacts out every night. I was actually doing pretty good at this until December, when the pace of work swept all my good intentions out the window.

4. Post more here. I enjoy writing these little missives much more than I ever thought I would.

5. Related to #4, take more pictures. I have such a great camera, and now a bag to keep it in (thanks, sweetie!), I want to flex those artistic muscles a little more.

6. Pay more attention to my marriage. My husband is the best thing in my life, and he keeps me going in so many ways. I resolve this year to make sure he knows how much I appreciate him.

7. Be more thankful and count my blessings more often. I think sometimes I lose sight of how blessed I am, in the day to day frustrations of life. I can often find ways in which my life doesn't measure up, without remembering the many ways in which my life is beautiful.

8. Read more books. I love to read but I find I don't have the time or attention span to devour books the way I used to. I tend to read much more online, but I find that far less satisfying. I want to learn to be satisfied with shorter chunks and be diligent about finishing books. I probably read maybe 20 books last year, and I'd like to up that ante this year. For those who think I'm less than erudite, I should note that I read all the time. It's just usually online or for work.

8a. Patronize the library. Because we are working on saving money and cutting the fat from our budget, I need to make better use of the library. I have a card, but I'm pretty sure I have never visited the Atlanta public library. I need to be satisfied with what I can find there and not be so swayed by the stacks of shiny new books in the local bookstore. Buying books has never ceased to be a luxury for me, so it's another way I indulge myself, now that I have the money to purchase books whenever I want.

9. Fold the laundry when it come out of the dryer. I am horrible at doing all the laundry and then running out of steam and letting it sit - clean - in the basket for two weeks. We'll be pawing through three loads of clean laundry for our respective underwear, and I'll be hating myself and my failures as a housekeeper (which are many).

9a. Do laundry more promptly. I want to try not to get to the bottom-of-the-barrel underwear before I do laundry. I want to try not to have my wardrobe be dictated by which clean underwear I have and which pants will not show a panty line with them.

And finally, and perhaps contradictory to all above:

10. RELAX. About life. About child rearing. About weight. About everything.

We'll see how we do with all of that. Happy New Year!