I know there's still a few days until the new year and the time for making resolutions for 2012 is a couple of days away, but I thought I would get a head start on making my (rather lengthy) list of resolutions. Here goes.
1. I WILL make dinner again. I love to cook. I don't have the skill to be able to whip something together from 5 ingredients in my pantry, but I can follow a recipe. And actually like doing it. There's nothing like the feeling of accomplishment when you sit down to a home cooked meal each night, knowing that your hands put together this meal (along with Pillsbury and Sara Lee--every cook needs a little help). I'm tired of eating out, I'm tired of seeing money disappear due to eating out. If I make dinner again six out of the seven nights a week, going out to a restaurant will become a treat again, not just a couple of times a week occurance like it is now. Cook dinner. No excuses.
2. This one's a little trickier.....lose weight. Now, I'm not naive enough to think that I'm going to get my fairly skinny pre-baby body back, but I would like to drop one more jean size and a few inches around the waist. Right now, I'm two sizes bigger than what I was before Avery. I would enjoy wiggling back into a size 6 jean and be perfectly content. This will be achieved through exercise. A tough one for me. I do not, in any way shape or form, have motivation to exercise. Even as a UK student, when the campus gym membership was FREE, I could not bring myself to put on work out clothes, drive to the gym, walk from the parking garage and work out. Not to mention how inadequate I felt being around those health nuts. Here I would be, huffing and puffing and close to death on the treadmill, while they barely broke a sweat running their third mile. No thank you. But I can do some form of a work out at home. Lift light weights with Marty. Do sit ups. Walk around our neighborhood. Too bad doing laundry and changing diapers doesn't burn more calories.....
3. Organize and clean my disgusting house. Listen. I'm a new mom. I'm exhausted 80% of the time. Currently, my attitude about cleaning house is that I don't have the energy to do it on a daily basis. I HAVE to get out of this mindframe. Instead of walking in the door and dumping everything on the kitchen table, I need to make the effort to put things away. Right now, when Avery goes to sleep around 8:30, I'm faced with the dilemma of chosing to accomplish things around the house that don't get done during the day or sleeping. 3 out of 4 times, sleeping wins. I know that my baby will be awake in a few hours (no, at 5 months old, we do not have a sleeping schedule figured out yet) and I want every precious hour of sleep that I can get. Instead, I need to accept the fact that I am not supposed to sleep during this period of Avery's life and start keeping my house neater. I'm not saying that I have to be an obsessive, oh-my-Lord-there's-dirt-on-my-floor-and-I'm-going-to-freak kind of person, but at least having my stuff put away would be a start. Then my 2013 goal can be to have a "Pinterest-esque" organized home.
4. Save money. This kind of goes hand-in-hand with the "cook more, eat out less" goal, but I need to stop buying things for myself. When I walk into Target, I usually peruse the clearance section of the women's clothes and shoes. Why? I have PLENTY of both. I don't need another black shirt or pair of flats. Make do with what I have. And I have some pretty great pieces in my closet that I haven't worn in awhile. And while I'm not buying clothes for myself, I need to stop randomly buying clothes for Avery. Believe it or not, this one will be harder to do. Baby girl clothes are sooooooo adorable. And so hard to pass up. But she's going to outgrow that onesie in 3 months...no matter how cute it is. She has two entire drawers full of onesies and a closet jam-packed of cute clothes. Stop. Buying. Baby clothes. Spend that money instead on formula and diapers. Or, better yet, put that money in Avery's college fund.
5. Be a better wife. Sometimes, I feel like with the crazy whirlwind that is my life of a mother with a 5 month old, my husband gets lost in the shuffle. We get up, we talk to Avery, we go to work, I pick up Avery, we get home, we play with Avery, we feed Avery, we put Avery to bed, I go to bed. I see very little "us" time in our current schedule. My husband has asked me several times to sit and watch a DVR'ed episode of "Mike and Molly" with him. I usually decline, opting instead to wash bottles or go to bed. What would thirty minutes of watching TV hurt? Especially when it means that I'm actually getting to spend uninterrupted time with Marty? I feel so frazzled most of the time with my new mom status and my inability to keep a clean house or do anything remotely domesticated anymore, that usually my frustrations come out on the target that's nearest....usually Marty. And I don't understand why. I'm so lucky to have a husband like I do. I hear stories of friends with babies whose husbands don't change diapers or clean up after themselves or do any type of housework in general. I have a husband that will change a diaper (although we're struggling with the dirty diapers right now), does his own laundry and will help me with housework when I'm feeling overwhelmed. Why don't I thank him more? This resolution should probably be moved up to the number 1 spot in importance.
6. Do more with Avery. I browse Pinterest probably once a week and find a million good ideas to do with or for your children. And I immediately pin it to my "Avery stuff" board and resolve that I will do those things for my little girl. Just like everything else, it gets lost in the hustle of our lives and the idea is quickly forgotten. Stop. Make moments count with Avery because she's only little once and I want her childhood to be as memorable as mine.
7. Figure out a way to balance this new-and-improved, domesticated, supermommy me, while also keeping time for myself. Since having Avery, I haven't been able to paint much. Mostly because I don't have the time, but also because my craft room/the office has officially become "the junk room." Don't judge me, I know you have one too. Avery in all her baby adorableness, arrived with a lot of stuff. In our house, that means very little place to keep it. We have a fairly small house with not much storage...few closets, no attic, no basement, no garage. This results in things being thrown in the office, because there is absolutely nowhere else for it to go. When I would walk into the office to relax and paint, I would become so overwhelmed by the clutter that I would immediately hyperventilate and walk back out. I will get this office cleaned, I will paint more, and I WILL find that "me" time that I've lost.
Okay. I'm done for now. There's a million other things that I'd love to list (organize our back porch, keep up with our landscaping, clean the front porch and put out chairs, start collecting antiques and incorporating them with the modern-ish pieces in our house, become a trend-setter and stop worrying what everyone thinks about my clothes and wear what makes me feel good (a.k.a. hats and dresses), make photo books, finish my dad's scrapbook, blog more) but I know that's not being realistic. Heck, out of the seven things I have listed, I'll probably be lucky to keep more than two of them for a few months. But I'm going to give it the old college try. Wish me luck. (and good luck to you in all your 2012 endeavors)
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