Here's Looking at You, 2013!

Throughout the year, I always hear people saying how you don't, and even shouldn't, wait until January to make a change or set some goals. While I get what they are trying to say, for me, there's something really exciting and re-energizing about starting a new year. It's like a fresh slate, a blank page in your book. Maybe the previous year wasn't such a great one, or maybe it was your best year yet. Either way, it's always exciting for me to start that next chapter in my life. That doesn't mean I save all my goals for January. If I want to start eating healthy or working out regularly, I won't wait for months to start. But I find the fall months leading up to the holidays always pass by quickly and before I know it, January is right around the corner and I've let a lot of things in my regular life fall to the way-side. Like eating well, exercising regularly, keeping documents from work organized, meal planning, staying on top of household clutter, etc, etc, etc! For me, January has always been a quiet month. There are no holidays in January, very few birthdays and overall it's just a cold, slow month. Which means I find it the perfect month to re-evaluate all the things in my life that I've been neglecting and decide what's important to me to work on for the new year.

While in the past (pre-blog), I've never written down my goals and resolutions, (because then I might feel more inclined to follow-through with them!), I think it's time I started. And putting them somewhere public and somewhere where I can easily refer back to, has encouraged me to be more thoughtful and thorough in the goals I decide on.

Things I'd like to work on in 2013, in no particular order:

My Bible

1. Get Back to Basics: A few years ago, around this time, I discovered Tosca Reno and her Eat-Clean Diet. I purchased The Eat-Clean Diet Recharged book and read it cover to cover in a matter of days. I loved everything about Tosca's philosophy to eat clean, wholesome foods. It clicked. It made sense. I was obsessed. I started paying attention to nutrition labels and actually cared about what I put into my body. I made a lot of healthy changes in a short period of time, and I stuck with the basic principles for a long time. But then, with a move from another province, coupled with wedding preparations and buying a home, I lost my way. Now that we are settled (more or less), I can no longer make excuses. Eating well, meal-planning and cooking healthful foods make me happy. I will resume meal-planning on Sundays, grocery shopping with a purpose, cooking more suppers and packing lunches (instead of always buying something on the run).

2. Get Off My Butt: It's very easy to become house-bound and sedentary during the winter months in Alberta. It's bloody cold out there for months on end and it's hard to leave the house when it's all warm and cozy inside. But exercise, like eating well, make me happy. And for me, the two go hand in hand. When I'm regularly active, my body craves healthful foods. I already play soccer and Ultimate Frisbee once a week, but often these sports are followed by a beer at the pub. Which I've been told, sort of negates the whole exercise component of each. So in addition to the sports, I will start including other neglected activities such as yoga, running and fitness classes at the gym (bodypump!). Once I get going, I'm pretty good at keeping it up! It's just building it into my routine those first few times that's tough for me.

3. Walk the Dog: Don't get me wrong, Saigon gets walked regularly, sometimes even twice a day. But there's no routine with when he gets his walks, and sometimes I feel this is unfair to him. In BC, I was really good at walking Saigon first thing in the morning. Now, the majority of his outings are in the evenings, even on my days off. My goal, on my days off, is to walk Saigon first thing - before I sit down at the computer, before I catch up on a show or do a few chores. That way I can go about my day without feeling guilty for not having walked him yet. On the days Jim and I both work, we will start walking Saigon together in the evenings, rather than trading off like we are often inclined to do.

4.  Cook-Book Scrap-Booking: On the last day I could use my book-store staff discount, I purchased this recipe binder. All my recipes that I've copied from friends, family or from on-line are on scrap pieces of paper held together by one big paperclip. It's a horrible, ugly system and I'd love to start a scrap-book for all of my favorite recipes.

5. Abolish Clutter: Clutter is my nemesis. I can't stand it, yet it constantly has a presence in my life. It's on our counters, on our kitchen table, but the worst of it resides in our second spare bedroom upstairs. I not-so-lovingly refer to it as our shit room. It's an abyss of things that don't really have a place in our home but we can't bear to part with (yet), boxes that still haven't been fully unpacked since moving in, and the place where clutter from downstairs gets thrown when we're tidying up the main floor. I usually keep the door to this room closed so I don't have to acknowledge it, but I hope that by posting a picture, I'll be shamed into tackling this room once and for all.

For Shame!

6. Write: Before Christmas, I bought myself this Q & A journal. A different question every day for the entire year. Repeat x 5 years. Simple yet brilliant. It's not overwhelming, it's not time consuming yet it still provokes thought. Is it realistic to think I can keep it up for 5 years? Probably not. But I desperately want to try my hardest. I started the journal on January 1 and make a point of taking a few (literally) minutes to answer the question of the day.

7. Finish Unfinished Projects: In the summer I started on a few furniture projects. But before I knew it, cold-weather was upon us and the projects got moved from the garage down to the basement, where they have sat, unfinished, since. These projects include the repainting/refinishing of two small bookshelves, an end-table and a small chest of drawers that I plan to use as a jewelry cupboard.  Our basement is unfinished, so there's really no reason why I can't finish these projects before summer rolls around. I mean, other than my sheer laziness.

Future Home to all my jewels.

8. Catch Up: It's no secret that I fell behind in blogging sometime last year. I struggled to find my groove, and in feeling pressured to post more often, I ended up just not posting at all. 2013 is a new year and while I'm not going to dwell on last year, I do want to write about the books I read but didn't blog about. These posts will most likely be shorter posts and more for "me", but it's something I need to do or it will always bother me.

9. Read:  Duh. More specifically though, read 50 books this year. It shouldn't be that hard, yet I didn't make it in 2012. I really want to hit that number this year.

10. Stop Biting my Nails: Self-explanatory. It's on my "resolution" list every flippin' year and it never happens. And no, that gross-tasting polish does not work. But I'm open to other suggestions!

Tell me: What are your resolutions for 2013?