Monday, January 01, 2007

New Year's Resolutions (last year)

At the beginning of 2006 I posted my resolutions for the year, hoping to keep myself accountable. Most fell apart under the pressure of pregnancy, new baby, and general lack of self-discipline. Here is the final reckoning ...

Faith
Commit to saying morning and evening prayer from the Divine Office daily. I used to do this, but over the last few years it has slipped from regular, to spasmodic, to almost never.
Morning prayer was almost a total washout. Evening prayer I said more or less regularly for a while, but for most of the year it has been sporadic ... though I never gave up totally!
Family
Fit regular one-on-one time with both girls into our normal routine - time to read aloud at their own level and just to chat. Make a monthly night out with Tevye a priority (we can do this, but are lazy about making the effort to arrange it).
I did succeed in making more one-on-one time for the older two girls. Taking them to Mass and out for a hot chocolate or other edible treat on alternate weeks is working out beautifully. Time out with Tevye fell by the wayside, inevitably I suppose. Maybe next year!
Fitness
Aim for an aqua-aerobics class and two trips to the gym each week. Getting into a regular fitness routine was one of the resolutions (the only resolution?) I stuck to last year, and I'm determined to get back to it now my energy levels are improving.
Ugh!
Formation
I have decided that this year I'm going to improve my scientific knowledge, so I'll commit to reading at least one "living" science book each month. And for faith formation I'll add one piece of spiritual reading monthly. And I'll post reviews here.
I kept up quite well with science reading - though not as much as a book a month - but not with the spiritual reading. I think this was largely because the spiritual books I want to read are rarely available from the library, whereas scientific books are.
Fun
Set aside some time each week for scrapbooking, even if it is only an hour. If I get much further behind I'll never manage to fit in a new baby scrapbook!
I wish! I did get quite a lot of scrapbooking done when I spent some weekends at my Mum's resting towards the end of my pregnancy. I've realised, though, that I need longer chunks of time to get into scrapping - a whole afternoon or evening, or better still, a whole weekend when I can leave all my stuff out to pick up at intervals.

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