Happy New Year

This post mentioned "time" - me time, us time, alone time, our time, whatever you want to call it. And the thing about time is that once you have kids, you still get that alone time... just at very odd hours.  

Like this morning, New Year's Eve, I woke up at 3:57a.m. to the sound of a screaming child.  Eventually I ended up offering this child a bottle and she went back to sleep but there I was sitting on the couch wide awake at 4:15a.m.  Now, I went to bed at 9 last night, which by the way, does NOT happen very often so I felt very rested and actually kind of giddy to curl up on the couch with a cup of hot coffee, a single sheet of monogrammed note paper for making a list, and the funny Dave Sedaris book that everyone has read except me, Me Talk Pretty One Day.

So I am thinking about my New Year's Resolutions and I am not going to make a huge deal about them but I will list a few little phrases that keep streaming through my conscious:

-pray more, like maybe 3 minutes every morning, first thing.  That doesn't sound like a long time but I am talking about real uninterrupted prayer in the still of the morning.

-eat smaller portions taking smaller bites, with smaller utensils, have you ever seen how huge our silverware is?

-take more walks and lift weights, start yoga or pilates not just to be a part of the trend but to feel good

-do something nice for others, volunteer, donate money to a charity, invite my neighbor over for dinner

-get off the gossip train at work, how petty and ridiculous is gossip? mind my own business

-read more, a book a month?

-do more creative things, paint, write letters instead of emails, make a card for someone instead paying for one

-use my China and crystal a lot more, like maybe Sunday dinners.

-make a bigger deal about people's birthdays

I think that is about it for now.  It is a good starting point at least.  I am sure that more resolutions will be born as the year progresses.  Oh, and I have this really cool square, fat, leathery journal, like the size of a stack of coasters, and each time I do something that falls into these goals I am going to write it down so I can look back over the pages this time next year and feel pretty good (or bad) about how much I stuck to my resolutions.

Oh and did you notice my blog banner and title updates?  Why not?  I hate the way this sounds but my blog isn't only about my precious babies anymore so I did a little changeroo... Look in the background of the picture, see that China plate?  Does posting this picture count as using my China for the first time in 2009?