Another Chance to Get it Right

“Cheers to a new year, and another chance to get it right” — Oprah

Happy new year, to all and sundry.  I’ve apparently decided to start off the new year with a head cold, but that’ll pass, and I’ll have all of glorious 2011 in front of me to learn new things, have new experiences, cherish the things I have, and try to scootch ever closer to zen mastery. Last year was very trying, and I don’t think I made any progress on the zen scale – on the other hand, with the list of things that happened to us I’m glad not to have lost much ground.  I won’t bore you by including them all here, but I assure you that on any scale last year was… interesting times.

So, this year!  Resolutions are always fun and exciting.  I generally don’t see the first of the year as any magical day, but if there’s some change I’m planning to make I frequently put it off until the beginning of the new year, since my experience says that making serious habit changes during autumn rarely stick.

So here we are, in winter (brr), with a handy spot on the calendar for introducing changes into our lives.  What do I plan to do with it?

Food. I’m going to stop eating so many inflammatory foods.  My joints are screaming more often than not now, and along with going to the doctor I’m going to stop eating the foods that make my tissues more cranky.  So, no meat, lots less gluten, no soy, way less sugar.  I may add corn and dairy, or I might not.  Also, I’m going to cook most meals at home so we save money.

Exercise. I think perhaps that all of my superwoman punching/kicking/falling martial activities aren’t the best choice I could make.  I am going to focus, for now, on yoga (my goal is 3 or more times a week) and running, and leave it at that.  I have groupons for some bootcampy things, but until my elbows, hips, shoulders and knees are no longer in pain when I stay still, I don’t think I’ll stress them.  I’m going to start a new DirectLife plan on Monday to make sure I’m burning the calories I want to be burning.

Scheduling.  I sure do get into ruts.  And rather than comforting and calming me because of the predictability it makes me a little cranky because I never have really new experiences. So every month I’m going to do something that’s not a usual thing.  This month, the Edwardian Ball.  Next month (ok, I might be cheating a little bit here), Pantheacon.  My friends have awesome parties that I don’t usually go to but I’m going to go to them too.

Money.  We have a lot of stuff.  We really don’t need more.  I have started a new system of adding things I would normally just buy to my amazon wishlist, then reviewing that after a couple of weeks to see if it still seems like a good idea.  I’ve got a bunch of amazon gift money to spend, but it’s not like it’s going to go bad or anything.

Stuff.  Speaking of stuff, I have a lot of stuff I don’t use.  Clothes, knick knacks, books.  This month will be a month of organizing my things, one type at a time (clothes first!) and giving the stuff I don’t use to people who don’t have stuff.

Mindfulness.  Have some.

So that’s my list.  It probably looks a lot like your list, if you have one.  But these are things I try to (and frequently do) change in my life.  I’m just making a fresh run at them since the calendar makes it easy.