Another New Year

A Maya Bunny Hops Into the New Year

No matter how many times I've heard it over the years, or how many times I've found it to be true, it never fails to amaze me how much faster time seems to fly as we get older. Zayd is two months old, though it seems only a couple of weeks since I was in the hospital. We suddenly have less than five months to secure a mortgage, find and buy a house, get inspections, sign paperwork, and close on said house, go through hundreds of boxes, hire movers, move into said house, and repair as much of the damage the children have done to our rental house as possible. It's been five and a half years since we lost Mina and Layla, and while in some ways that seems like a lifetime ago, at other times the pain and the memories are as fresh as if it had only been a few months. My sweet little fair-haired, blue-eyed boy is close to getting an apprentice degree and will turn 20 this year. 20! Holy cow, my heart skipped a beat just typing that. I'm about to turn 39 and will hit the big 4-0 in only a year's time, but it seems only a few years have gone by since I was completely panic-stricken about turning 30. (I'm much more relaxed about turning 40. I'm just a little amazed that it's actually happening.)

I know it's easier to stick to new year resolutions if you only make one or two, but I couldn't narrow it down enough this year. Here then are my resolutions, and let's see how long I can keep to them.

"In order to arrive at what you are not, you must go through the way in which you are not." - T S Eliot

1. Write! I completely failed at last year's resolution to finish a book and get it sent off to a publisher. In fact, I kept thinking I had so much time that I kept postponing it, and suddenly 2009 is here. This year, I'd like to try to write for one hour a week. That's all! That's not much, but it would add up to 52 hours more than I wrote this year.

2. Limit fast food to once per calendar week. I'd try to cut it out altogether, but I know I'd be setting myself up for failure. I'm so often on the run and have to grab something quick. I'm going to try to keep sandwich ingredients in the house and plan ahead so that I can take food with me if I'm going to be out for a while.

3. Limit sweet things to one per day. Again, I'd be setting myself up for failure if I tried to cut sugar out of my diet altogether. Baby steps!

4. Stop yelling. If there is too much fussing for me to be heard with a normal voice, I'll wait out the fussing. I'll physically remove a child from the situation if necessary rather than yelling at him/her to remove himself/herself. Imminently dangerous situations are excluded.