Revisiting Resolutions

Do you still think about your New Years Resolutions?  (Did you make them in the first place?)  I’ve been thinking a lot about my resolutions lately and how I’ve been doing (or not) on them.  You may remember these were my goals for 2012:

And on top of those goals, I also have my ongoing list of what I call my Housewife Challenges: personal, parenting, and household related goals for myself, that I expect may be hard to always fulfill.

It’s been a really long time since I wrote a “report card” or bothered to honestly check in with myself and how I’ve been doing.  Probably, that’s because I haven’t been doing so hot on a lot of these things.  Who actually, really likes to hold themselves accountable?  I mean, that’s why most people conveniently forget about their resolutions sometime mid-February, right?  Despite my desire to just pretend it’s not happening, I thought it might be time to take a moment to reevaluate where things stand.

The biggest change, and one that I’ve received several questions about, is that we are no longer planning to sell the car.  We did list it several times on the REX and on Nantucket.net, but we didn’t get a single inquiry.  After several weeks, we determined that it’s just too expensive for a used car, especially here on island when many people are happy to drive a junker since everything is so nearby.  We didn’t want to keep paying to list it with no response and when I called the Honda dealer in Hyannis it did not sound like they would give us as much for it as we wanted (we weren’t going to waste ferry money to actually find out), so we decided to stop trying to sell it.  I’m disappointed to not be able to get rid of the car loan and another student loan as planned and I’ll admit I was looking forward to the challenge of living a completely car free existence, but it’s not the end of the world.  It is handy to have around and does make certain trips more convenient; we’re also trying to look at it as an asset, since it will be paid off in less then two years and will have less than 30,000 miles on it.

Just visiting this blog and Papoose’s blog, you probably know how I’ve been doing with my blogging resolutions and video taking/sharing resolutions.  I’m completely blaming that on baby 2 and my energy levels.  Also, baby 2 gets the blame for all the shows Nora has been watching while I nap, the housework I haven’t been doing (floor mopping), the fact that I’ve been spending money on things at the grocery store that I would never have bought before (**cough**white cheddar cheese puffs**cough**), and some of the blame for my reduced patience with Nora lately (who has all of a sudden morphed into a child who is testing boundaries and limits).  Poor kid, baby isn’t even born yet and s/he’s already getting blamed for things.

Things aren’t all bad, though.  I am doing better about my sugar addiction, mostly because it seems like this baby wants me to eat things like cheese puffs, smoothies, eggs, and lobster rolls (lots and lots of lobster rolls) to keep my tummy happy.  I’m also so, so happy to report that not only am I sticking with yoga, but I’m also seeing real progress.  Earlier in the summer, I attended a Yoga Room guest teacher workshop with David Regelin and I had a real epiphany.  He asked us to do a shoulder stand, which is something I couldn’t even do when I got serious about yoga in January and hadn’t tried to do for months; in that class, I was able to get up into the pose and hold it for three minutes, the whole time during which my brain was screaming, “Oh my gosh, I can actually do this!!!”  It’s been pretty exciting to realize that the months of practice has actually done something (especially since I rarely do it at home and only make class once per week), and I’m kind of proud of myself.  I’m just hoping that the break I’ll take after baby is born won’t mean too much of a set back toward my yoga master goal (hah).

I’ve mentioned before that I am getting some energy back and it’s been helpful to have Nora at a play group four hours a week, so some of these things have been getting a little better.  And maybe there will be changes in the fall when she’ll be in preschool(!) two mornings per week.  We’ll see.  For now, I’m just happy that I’m at least thinking about my goals and pretending that letting things go is part of my most recent Housewife Challenge: prioritize and be realistic in expectations for myself.

It’s almost August.  How’re you doing on your New Years Resolutions?  (Do you even remember what they are?)