The resolution post.

Yes, I make resolutions. In fact, I make them so religiously (and frequently -- New Year's isn't the only time) that I was shocked when I saw an article saying that only 40% of Americans do. (Keeping them -- and sometimes even remembering what they are -- is another story.) I am a planner -- I thrive off figuring out what I want to do and how I'm going to do it. Sometimes (okay, usually) this means that I bog myself down with plans and paralyze myself until I flop on the couch and read for two hours straight or have a Netflix binge rather than utilize my son's nap time to be awesome. But in the meantime, on this plan-making day of all plan-making days, I have been thinking up goals for the new year.

I have a few different things I want to try this year. One of them is having a "word" for the year. I've noticed a few of my favorite writers mentioning words that they focus on in different times of their lives. These words tend to be more sophisticated than mine (the one that comes to mind is ousia, a Greek word for essence, cited by Madeleine L'Engle in Summer of the Great-Grandmother). But lately, I've been thinking that I should focus on the word confidence. I feel like most of my problems stem from the fact that I have terrible confidence, so I want to work on this problem. I haven't come up with a plan for it at this point, but I'm hoping to do some meditation and pondering on this word and come up with something more.

There are also a couple of awesome fitness challenges I am jumping in for January. The only last through January, which seems much more doable to me than saying, "I shall lose thirty pounds in the new year!" (One of my goals last year was to lose 40 pounds in 2014. I didn't do that, but I did lose 20 pounds, which on this side of it still feels pretty good). One of them is Yoga With Adriene's 30 Days of Yoga Challenge, and the other is Jessica Smith's #FitinFifteen. Both seem compatible with what I actually want to get out of exercise, and both are free and can be done in my house. Win/win.

Then I have my "traditional" resolutions. They are:
1. Incorporate a swear jar where I have to put money in every time I swear. (Not that I swear sooo much, but it has been slipping out more lately, especially at work, and I want to have better language and more self control).
2. Stop picking at my arms (this is kind of ridiculous. Does any one else have stupid habits like this that they just can't break?)
3. Check email/social media only three times a day.
4. Write a "musing" every week and post it on this blog.
5. Do some sort of "self care" every day. (I.e., something that makes me happy when I am stressed, instead of mindlessly going through social media or eating lots of sugar).

Finally, I am starting over with the DayZero Project, which is completing 101 things in 1001 days. They aren't all lofty goals -- more like bucket list type tasks, as well as some things that I've been putting off for weeks/months. The goal is to do these by September 28, 2017.

1.     Have another baby
2.     Run a half-marathon
3.     Do NaNoWriMo
4.     Move to a new state
5.     Read A Suitable Boy
6.     Sing in public
7.     Make a buche de noel at Christmas time
8.     Do the Women in the Scriptures challenge
9.     Finish reading Preach My Gospel
10. Give away a Book of Mormon
11. Watch the sunrise
12. Make family yearbooks
13. Finish Cal’s baby book
14. Go to a temple I’ve never been to before
15. Submit something I’ve written to a publication (ex: Coffee + Crumbs, HelloGiggles, Segullah, Literary Mama)
16. Go camping
17. Watch all the Harry Potter movies
18. Take Cal to the Thomas exhibit at the museum
19. Take Cal to the natural history museum
20. See Taylor Swift in concert
21. Hit my pre-baby weight
22. Play the guitar
23. Finish my Classics club list
24. Try Moroccan food
25. Eat at Ariel’s Grotto
26. Spot a celebrity “in the wild”
27. Learn another Bach fugue
28. Learn another Beethoven sonata
29. Learn another Chopin nocturne
30. Re-decorate our bathroom
31. Visit a new state
32. Visit a new country
33. Adopt a kid for Christmas
34. Finish reading Anna Karenina
35. Go on a hike
36. Fly a kite
37. Make fennel chips
38. Watch a sunset
39. Get ice cream at a Ben and Jerry’s shop
40. Go dancing
41. Water ski

 42. Snow ski
43. Eat at the Farmer’s market
44. Eat at Napa Rose
45. Be a stay-at-home mom
46. Take Cal to Olvera street
47. Start doing Barre3
48. Take a prenatal yoga class
49. Have another hot cocoa party
50. Have fondue
51. Make macarons again
52. Visit New York City
53. Eat a Laduree macaron
54. Read on the beach
55. Donate platelets
56. Make a lip scrub
57. Clean the mold out of my shower
58. Eat at my favorite Indian food restaurant in Cerritos
59. Have papusas
60. Get a haircut
61. Read the sequels to Little Women
62. Sew… a thing.
63. Finish my Halloween wreath
64. Make a white and blue winter wreath
65. Start collecting the Willow Tree nativity
66. Get a massage
67. Get a manicure
68. Go berry picking
69. Visit Jenna in Michigan
70. Dress up for Halloween
71. Get a pedicure right before giving birth
72. Go to the commissary
73. Watch the fireworks at Disneyland
74. Get a facial
75. Make a white stocking for Christmas (to put my gift for Christ in each year)
76. Go to San Francisco
77. Make peanut butter pie
78. Go on a picnic
79. Go to the observation park @ LAX
80. Make my own herbal tea
81. Go to LA Times Book Festival again
82. See a play
83. Watch all the Lord of the Rings movies again
84. Make a rainbow layer cake
85. Go to a military function
86. Have a mother/sister/daughter weekend
87. Make potato pancakes
88. Go to Noah’s ark exhibit
89. Go to a splash pad
90. Make something in my Le Creuset pot
91. Freeze breakfast burritos
92. Write in the Literati Café
93. Make Christmas ornaments with Cal
94. Make decorated Christmas tree ice cream cones
95. See the temple lights at Christmas time
96. Update photos in family photo collage
97. Make homemade ice cream
98. Get pretty vases for the kitchen
99. Buy some tub containers to organize Cal’s train tracks.
100.  Learn some new skills in Italian
101.  Speak French to someone

All right, that's enough crazy lady for today. Happy new year!