resolutions

Over the holiday, B's mom had told us about someone she knew that resolved to not purchase anything new except for food for a year. Not surprisingly, she ended up saving thousands of dollars. This got me to thinking if we could do the same thing. And the answer that we came to was probably not, but let's try it out for a month. So we are 10 days into the new year, so far so good, except for a sled purchase that was deemed necessary for some winter fun yesterday.

I think that giving up stuff for a month is going to hopefully be a bit of a reset button for us. Not unlike a fast or a cleanse, it is not sustainable long term for us to not buy anything ever again. But it would do us some good to be thankful for all the stuff that we have and hopefully save some money this year.

My thoughts for this year are to make micro-resolutions which will hopefully result in small shifts in my life that will make things more fulfilling and happier.

1. Do yoga once a week: something that I enjoy doing so much, but only do sporadically
2. Cook more: my quest to become a better cook in 2009 has yielded fairly good results. I am getting a hang of things but still rely heavily on recipes. Luckily, we got a combined four new cookbooks for Christmas so the quest continues.
3. Finish my website: it was started, the design was almost complete and then my laptop got stolen and nothing was backed up. So I started anew and am tinkering away at it.
4. Catch up: There are a few people that I make a concerted effort to talk to frequently, but there are a few people that I should make more of an effort to talk to more.
5. Gratitude: It was suggested to me that perhaps before every dinner, we should all hold hands (which Ethan really enjoys doing) and instead of saying grace we should all say something that we are grateful for. To teach Ethan the meaning of gratitude and for us to be reminded of it as well.
6. Patience: You can never have to much. And like any parent, I sometimes run short on it.

That's about it. A fairly unexciting set of resolutions. That said, I do think that 2010 is going to be a fantastic year. Both B and I got job offers for permanent full time employment which I am excited and relieved about. There was a minor blip of excitement that we might be moving to Colorado after B interviewed for a job in Boulder, but their lack of alacrity with a job offer has made us re-think this and have decided that two of us being employed here is better then one of us possibly being employed there. That is not to say that we have given up on the idea of moving west, it is still there, but the timing of this seemed off and a little bit too much too soon. We have finally reached a point of things being settled and really good, no need to rock the boat just yet.