New Year, New Us

You know those pesky things called resolutions?  Millions of people pledge to change things about their lives on the first day of the New Year.  Generally by the first week of February, 99% of those changes have fallen by the wayside.

I generally avoid resolutions.  I don't like the idea of setting myself up for failure.  Resolving to make major changes generally results in failure.  You are much more likely to be successful if you start small and work your way up to big than if you jump straight to big.  This year I am going to make some big changes, hopefully by making small ones.

It's no secret I have struggled to lose weight.  I used to be skinny.  Age and kids and stress and life have added up to about forty extra pounds that I currently need to shed.  Last year, I tried.  I failed.  I lost about seven pounds and never got any further.  This year, I hope to change that.  But instead of making a resolution to lose forty pounds, I have chosen to make a change in my LIFE.  So my "resolution" is to eat healthier, and exercise every day.  It's easy to let yourself get caught up in excuses (as I have already done - however, in my defense, I have been sick for the last four days.  Like, don't want to get out of bed because your body feels like it got hit by a truck sick.).  I'm hopeful that, instead of having an end goal number in my mind, if I have a plan to change my lifestyle, I will see better results.

I'm also resolving to spend more time with my family.  The last two years have not been easy, for me or for us.  There is a LOT going on in all our lives, and sometimes it feels like I'm doing everything I can to just make sure I don't drop the ball, rather than actually playing with it.  I don't really know how I'm going to do it, what with work, and school, and activities, and work, and kids and, well, LIFE.  But I'm going to try.  We are going to designate "family night" every other Saturday, where we play games, or watch a movie together, or go to the park, or a ball game, or something.  We are also going to start doing "date night" between Daddy Mac and I once a month.  Even if it's just having the kids go to Grandma and Grandpa's and renting a movie, we are going to make an effort to have time for us.  Time we have struggled to make in the last two years.

The last thing we are resolving to do is to save some money.  We have a lot of necessary expenses, some rather large, which are unavoidable.  But at the same time, we need to start trying to budget more.  Or better.  I'm hoping this will resolve some of the stress in our lives.  We are doing the weekly savings plan - the first week you put $1 in savings, the second week you put $2, and so on.  By the end of the year we should have roughly $1300 in savings.  It's not a lot, but it's a LOT more than we currently have.

So, what are you resolving to change this year?  Oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR from all of us!