New Year's Goals

Hugs after birthday donuts. Nothing to do with this post but they're just so cute.

I thought I'd better write down my New Year's goals somewhere I can easily find and reference them often. Even though they shouldn't be too hard to remember, since there are only three. But they're kind of a big three, and pretty important.

1. Make My Bed Every Day

Once upon a time last year I was complaining venting to my dear cousin Paige about how I felt like I could never keep up with any of the housework, and it was stressing me out to the point where I was yelling at my kids way too often. She suggested I keep my bedroom as my sanctuary, don't let the kids in there unless necessary, and always make cleaning it a priority. I tried it for a couple days and it actually helped a lot, but then life got busy and I got lazy and I'm ready to start it up again. Of the 5 days that have gone by in January, I've made my bed 3 of them. Pretty good I guess. It does make me much calmer when my bedroom is clean, and its a place I can retreat to when I go into the living room to find chewed up apple skins spit out all over the couch and carpet. I also found the rest of one of said apples in the bottom of my blanket basket as I was putting blankets away. Luckily it had only been there for one day... stinkin' Millie.

2. Be More Affectionate

I am not good at this. It doesn't come to me naturally, unless its being affectionate toward somebody 18 months and younger. But as soon as they're old enough to know what they're doing when they tick me off it's like a switch flips. Most of the time I have to consciously get myself to snuggle my kids or give Kade a kiss when he comes home from work. Does that make me a monster? I don't think so. Being affectionate is not something we're all born with, just like any other trait or talent. Some people are better at showing their love for others than I am. In fact, every time I give any of my siblings a hug at least one of us prefaces it with "I know we don't usually hug but this is a special occassion..." It's gotten a lot more huggy in my family since Kade and I moved away and three of my siblings have been sent on missions. It must have stemmed from all the hugs we were forced to give each other when we would fight as kids and our parents made us make up. Just kidding, I know that's pretty common in most families. But the point of this paragraph is to say I'm not naturally gifted at showing the love that I do have. But I am getting better, slowly.

3. Be Uninhibited

If I had to pick one word as the theme for 2016 I would want it to be uninhibited. I'm done with sitting home alone with the kids because I don't want to take them all by myself to go do something fun (though I did get better at this over the past 6 months. But I do feel guilty about Kade having to miss all the fun...) For whatever reason I always feel the need to have another adult come along with me, maybe because I subconsciously think people are staring at me and feeling pity on me because I'm alone and must have no friends or husband. Ridiculous, right? But that's all going to change. I've spent too much of my life worried about how I appear to those around me. Kade can attest to that. I'm sure he gets so sick of me stressing about how other people must think or talk about me. I spend too much time trying to figure out how I need to dress in order to fit in with those I associate with... on Sundays. Which is basically the only time I regularly see other people. But I'm not going to worry about that anymore, because it hasn't brought me a lot of positive change anyway. And the same old things I used to let bug me for the past year aren't even going to grace my mind as thoughts this year. I'm letting go. Because this is potentially our last year in North Carolina and there's a lot I want to do and see and I don't have time to sit and stew over stupid stuff anymore.

So that's it. Those are the three things I want to accomplish this year. I'm also going to try to go to the gym regularly but I'm cutting myself some major slack there because, well, I'm just going to get bigger and bigger until mid April anyway, and at that point I'll be recuperating for a few weeks, and after that who knows how long I'll actually be able to work out because who knows how fussy my baby will be and realistically it just doesn't make sense to set any fitness goals this year. And obviously I'm going to eat healthier this year because we survived December on a steady diet of dirty dr. pepper's and Maddox chicken baskets and delicious as it was, I think our guts could use something fresh for a while.

Ok, future Jess. Visit this post from time to time and refresh yourself on your New Year's goals... then come back in one year and tell us how you did. I wish you the best of luck!