SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT...

And never brought to mind! 

Ah isn't this how many of us feel regarding New Years Resolutions? We make them on the 31st of December, and by the 1st of January we'd rather forget them! And I am even more reticent to make a public confession of these goals, but as there's no guarantee anyone will read them I feel fairly safe 😉

Here's the thing about resolutions, if you don't already know, it's all well and good to say I'd like to be more spiritual/grateful/fit, but unless you back those things up with a proper plan of concrete actions... It ain't gonna happen.

So, in light of that, I have made THREE (I love making lists, don't you?) lists of resolutions.

The first is very straightforward and I won't go into any detail here, it's just a list of projects for the year, things I have promised to make, or would like to make.

The second is a list of buzzwords for the year:

Intentional
Grateful
Encouraging
Gentle
Natural
Minimalist

What I'm hoping to do is reflect on this list monthly and make a couple of goals each month related to these words, with a view to creating habits which make me a more (insert word here) person. 

And the third is a very specific list of things I actually want to do. This year I've decided to take the "eat a frog for breakfast approach" and try to get a few of them out of the way early. If you're like me you'll put a couple of things on the list SOLELY because you KNOW you can cross them off early and feel like a winner! Take kids on the Elmore Miniature Railway? TICK! Day one of the new year and we're already one resolution down!

1. A working cleaning schedule

If you know me you know I am not a cleaner. I am a tidier (don't get me started on my enthusiasm for tidying! Well, not yet, we don't have time here...) but cleaning is just something that eludes me. My particular pet peeves are vacuuming and mopping. In light of this I need to come up with some kind of rule for myself that says (as I am always saying to the children) "just do it now, and then it's done." The thing is I do APPRECIATE a clean(ish, I have small children, let's be real here people) home, I'm just in the habit of avoiding the actual cleaning.

2. Digitise addresses and birthdays

I love the IDEA of address books and birthday books, it's all so sweet and Victorian, a lady sits down at her little fold down desk and pulls out all the wherewithal to write a few cards, or a thank you note, or a real honest-to-goodness letter; "My Darling Sister, I hope this letter finds you well..." But the truth is more me texting a friend for the hundredth time to ask for her "new" address, at the place she's been living for three years 😳 Let's just face it, I'm always on my phone (I know, I know) the phone is the place I go to for information, if I was saving the info on my phone when it arrived this never would have happened in the first place... Let's just put it in the cloud so we never have to worry about it again.

3. Say the rosary

Every. Bloody. Year. If I'd grown up in a house where saying the rosary was part of the furniture, I wouldn't be struggling with it now, and the only way to stop it being generational is to make this habit in our home. And it seems particularly apt to try to do it in this the 100th anniversary of the apparitions at Fatima, when Our Lady said (again, mothers always have to repeat themselves) "If you want to help, say your freakin rosary!" (I'm paraphrasing of course, that's what I would have said, not what she said.) I think the thing, FOR ME, is going to be that emphasis that I'm doing it for THE FAMILY, not for MYSELF. It's so hard to carve out the time, especially when it feels so unproductive to be still for so long, but if I just tell myself that I'm doing it for someone else (the same way I do when I'm looking after my pregnant body) I think that might make it easier.

4. Start traditions/honour saints' feast days

See above. 

But also some days the house feels pretty crazy with a three year old, an almost two year old, and a four month old, and I am convinced that this is at least in part because I don't plan out our days. (This is also the problem with the cleaning schedule, I am waiting for the "desire to clean" to strike me like a bolt of lightning, hopefully before the mould takes over 😳) Oh we have a routine for meal times and sleeps, but it has only recently become a problem that no activities are PLANNED in between. It used to be enough that I would do a few jobs and the kids would play with their toys, but now, particularly since Mister Three has dropped his sleep, we really need some directed activities. We've moved from planned activities being too over-stimulating, to DESPERATELY NEEDING some structure, not just to keep the crazy at bay, but to actually keep the child's brain developing. 

5. Finish the baby books

Now, this is nowhere near as far from done as you might imagine. Child 1's book is missing one photo I think, Child 2 I just have to go back through some emails and find the necessary details, Child 3... We will get there 😁 As you can see, I love to write, I love a project, and I love the idea that my child will be able to come back to this record when they have a baby and see that they too were cute, and cuddly, and confusing... 

6. Cover the kids' books

This is ongoing, especially as I keep BUYING books (Op shops! How can people simply discard these treasures!? I feel particularly wounded when I see it's been discarded from a school library, I guess to make room for more "Hunger Games" and "Twilight" eek!) and it's going to take a substantial amount of contact to cover the ones we have (I once aspired to covering all my husband's books too, but that's just beyond me now!) but Child 2 is particularly adept at destroying books, in a way that would never occur to Child 1, so we must do our best to protect our faithful friends!

7. Multivitamin

'Nuff said really. I have a friend who's a naturopath who can get really high quality supplements, I just have to get onto this. And then not forget to take them. (I hate taking them, they make me feel queasy, anyone else?) Anyway, we can all stand to take better care of ourselves one way or another, at least one resolution should be focussed on this. Oh yeah, and exercise, pfft. Moving on.

8. Save for Christmas

Oh geez. EVERY YEAR it takes me by surprise! "Oh, Christmas you say? Hmm, better buy some presents..." And I consider myself an organised person! I usually start buying presents in November cos I do a lot of my shopping online and you need time for delivery. So with that in mind, this year I'm opening an EXTRA savings account and squirrelling the money away so I have it when Christmas comes. I'm going to do that decreasing savings thing, so the first week it's $50, then $49, $48, $47, etc. I figure by November this will give me a nice little bundle to spend on EVERYTHING we usually spend on at Christmas. AND THEN I'd like to be DONE with the shopping by the end of November so I can focus my energy (and my little munchkins' minds) on ADVENT. Something that sadly eluded me this year.


And that's it! Easy, right?