Here we are…teetering on the brink of 2010…(Boy, does it feel weird to type it out that way.)…all goodwill, anticipation and full power resolve! I love January, and resolutions and clean slates and starting over and self improvement and all the great empowerment that comes from planning a new tack for success. Ah!

So…here we go….before I share my next batch of resolutions, first a little recap of what I tackled last year and how it all worked out for me. There are always successes and a few areas where I can polish up my plans…that’s the way goals work. I know lots and lots of people who think resolutions are an annoying waste of time because they never are accomplished and I find that as long as I make my resolutions practical and achievable, there are always some brilliant successes…and I can take a little failure alongside some genuinely inspiring improvement. This is the real stuff of life. Last years were: (responses in highlights)

• To truly de-clutter (I'm selling my magazine stash, getting rid of most of my stored baby clothes, and taking the pack n' play off to Goodwill....HELLO SPACE!!!!)  I did this one! Boy does purging feel good!
• To begin playing the fiddle (my mom gave me the family instrument and A bought me a video lesson series...its in the mail.) Less successful....didn't play much at all...am a poor self motivator.
• To record the myriad books I read this year (GoodReads...here I come!) DID IT!!! And wow did it feel great...I read a lot of books and its great to be able to share my reading with other people and record it for posterity.
• To live more greenly (specifically: get a recycling bin, replace our mommy and kid toiletries with healthy, natural alternatives, recycle all our plastic grocery bags and eliminate paper towels) I did lots here too!! I bought better toiletries, drastically reduced our grocery bag use because we switched to cloth bags, and got a recycling bin for indoors and then a curbside plastic box for actual pick-up too)
• To spend one night a month working on sentimental records: journalling, the babybooks, our photo collection...etc. This one didn't happen. I should have set a reminder in my phone to make sure I remembered.
• To write my dad a letter a month for the next year (this was my Christmas gift to him this year) I did a great job at this until about May or June when my major crisis hit and I forgot all about writing letters
• To teach Reuben to brush his teeth in the morning (in addition to his normal nightly brushing) Oops. Forgot completely about this one.
• To shop for a house!!! (A's ready to settle, of his own volition, and our plan: shop 2009, buy 2010) Right.
• To set into place family routines (bed routine, weekend routines, holiday routines, morning routine...etc.) I have some of these now....bedtime is firmly in place and mornings have a nice rhythm...
• To go deeper with friendships. Check.
• To pray more (more earnestly, more frequently, more ways) Not sure I changed much here.
• To eat three colors of produce at each meal. This was pretty highly successful actually I wouldn't say I have been terribly hard-core about application but we eat produce at every single meal now and usually more than one....that feels like the real goal I was shooting for.
• To have snuggle time (for kisses and stories and closeness) and outdoor time everyday with the boys. I wouldn't say I'm perfect here but I do work consciously at it now and we hit closeness time every day and outdoor time quite often.
• To have company as a family at least once a month. You'll see this one again.
• To re-paint the living room/dining room with no-odor, no VOC paint in a color I love. Check! Yay!
• To keep a dream journal next to my bed. Drat. Forgot this one....even though it would be really cool to do. Might revisit it...
• To learn to make my own pasta from scratch (particularly ravioli!) Blast.
• To write four new poems and four new visual art works. I wrote two poems and did a little visual artwork although I'm not sure I pulled off four.
• To sew something for each boy this year. Heh. Nothing there.
• To get away for at least one overnight alone with A. We did this!
• To read up on anthropology and genetics. Hm....did a little bit of reading on anthropology but not any genetics.
• To attend one birth. These things have to kind of fall in your lap. I didn't hit it this year. Oh well. Points for good intentions.
  
• To re-pot all my plants in soothingly cohesive terracotta. I did it and its so wonderful!

And now for a whole new batch….

Resolutions 2010

• Spiff up my blog (this involves a multitude of changes including: switching to a new host, blogging 5 days a week, doing all my own photography, focusing my content a bit more….etc.)
• Take fiddle lessons (I’ve got my own instrument and have wanted to play for years while attempting to self-teach but to be perfectly honest with myself I haven’t the drive…I think I need external motivation.)
• Organize the kids clothes storage
• Find regular practical ways to incorporate music and prayer into my kid’s lives
• Attend more homeschool social activities with the local group I discovered this year
• Attend some of the mushroom forays with the local mycology club (kids invited!!)
• Take Reuben horseback riding (he wants to go in the worst way)
• To do at least part of the packing for our next move (built in organization and purging!) which I think might happen sometime in the next year.
• Make pasta from scratch! (Argh! I will not be beaten!!!)
• Start working out in the mornings with A (as much as I can while pregnant)
• Work in a few small practical ways to avoid being a bitter person
• Ditto for being a less sensitive person
• Try to get my potted jasmine to bloom
• Do some reading about proper, grown up make-up application
• Knit one sweater (baby sweaters count!)
• Have someone for dinner once a month (certain themes are re-occuring)
• Read more about homeschooling/unschooling