the Resolution to my Resolutions

January- 10 months, and 2.5 years

Happy New Year!

February- Eating mulch.

In the words of my husband, "I think 2012 is going to be our year. Hopefully we don't all die." It was a pretty rough year for us, no lie. January was spent packing our things because my layoff meant we could no longer afford our rent, so we moved in with my in-laws. In March we celebrated the Little Man's First Birthday, June was ZaZa's 3rd Birthday. In July, D broke his left tibia (he lost his balance and sat on it oddly), September saw us with a not-quite-3-day power outage thanks to Tropical Storm Lee that pounded the East Coast. October was a fun month with both my and Bogie's birthdays and a BBQ at my Uncle's house. The end of October saw a several inch snowstorm, and a few weeks later into November it was up in the 60's. We had a lovely Christmas in December and were blessed financially by several different sources. My job search continues and we are now searching everywhere, if the job pays enough to warrant a move, then we'll go there. So if ya'll want us to stick around, pray somebody in the Lancaster area gives me a job or we could potentially move halfway across the country!

March- D turns 1!

In other news, last January I made 3 resolutions and 1 long-term goal. I'm happy to report I'm 2 for 3 on resolutions and underway on the long-term goal.

Resolution #1: To watch 2 films (1 color, 1 B&W) every month that I'd never seen before.
Result: I watched 42 films that I had never seen before, averaging 2 per month minimum until the last couple months where the count steadily increased until I hit 11 films in December. Yowza. I had a ball doing this and I'm going to do it again this year, with some changes.

May- outside bubbles!

Resolution #2: Lose the baby weight.

April- helping out.

Result: This one is a work in progress, but it is progressing! Last I checked (which was several weeks ago) I was down 13 pounds (we started mid-November) and several inches off various limbs. (I should add that although my weight loss has stalled the past few weeks, I'm on a supplement per Doctor's orders that makes me retain water. If you're trying to lose weight, make sure you take your measurements too and not just weigh yourself, as muscle weighs more than fat. The scale may not always change but you might still be losing inches, so measure yourself because you need all the encouragement you can get!) With that being said, these results are only the outcome of a diet change, I have not exercised at all yet. We're still on our diet and going strong, and once I add in some exercises I think it'll make a big difference. Just the diet alone has really helped because we cut out all of the junk and then some. No sugar, no dairy, no flour, no

June- 3rd birthday in SC

August- Mom's day off

July- Little Brother breaks his leg.

calories via drink (water, tea, and black coffee only) and lots of veggies and proteins. It's not the most interesting diet, but we always eat the same things over and over again anyway so we're just transferring from junky food to healthy  food! Plus, we get 1 cheat day a week and that has really helped us psychologically stay on this diet. 1 day a week we get whatever we want to eat & drink, and we're actually at the point where we avoid certain foods on cheat day anyway because they just make us feel too gross. If you're interested in what diet we're doing, go here. We have the book but we're nowhere near doing everything in it, we've really only made it to basic SCD foods so far.

October- family BBQ

September- Tropical Storm Lee.

Resolution #3: Complete my list of films that I've watched.

November- snowstorm

Result: Failure. I totally forgot all about this one until the day after Christmas. I briefly considered pulling a book-scanning/Excel typing marathon and then decided against it. I will be adding it to this year's list, though, because I do want to get my list up to date before I start adding to it again.

Long-Term Goal: Read through the New York Times' List of 100 Best Novels.

December-decorations

Result: We are on book #2. or rather Bogie is, I'm done and ready to start book #3. We randomized the list to remove any bias based on NYT's opinion. I don't care what book they think is #1, I want to read something with a clean mind and be able to form my own opinions without influence. Our first book was Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse 5" which...I dunno, I'm still forming an opinion on that one. Not my favorite anytime soon, but I enjoyed it more than Joyce's "Portrait of an artist as a young man". I won't say any more since Bogie's not done with it, but man...how'd that book get so high on the list??

December- Christmas tree!

That's the outcome of my 3 resolutions from 2011, and my new resolutions from 2012 are to continue with all of the above! I'll add a fourth resolution: get a job. And I'm thinking about adding 2 movies to my movie list because I can easily watch 4 a month. Watch 2 B&W and 2 color movies per month that I've never seen, finish my movies watched list, continue to get healthy and fit, and get a job! Bogie and I set up a schedule/calendar for ourselves so that we will be more disciplined with our time, so we have a set time every week that we have to read for at least 30 minutes, no excuses. I think we'll be reading a lot more than that, but it's nice to know that we have a time set aside for it. It's like restricting ourselves to scheduling a time for it has given us the freedom to do it whenever we want. A paradox to be sure, but it works!

I wish a happy New Year for each and every one of you, I know that 2011 was a very hard year for many of us. Even if my personal circumstances are no more improved this year, I resolve not to let my circumstances determine my moods/emotions. I will choose joy! And if I don't, I have two beautiful little people that get ecstatic over cars and balloons, so it's kind of hard not to!