Resolute

I make them every year, and I try to stick to them as long as I can.  I think the only one I've ever been fully successful with was giving up celebrity gossip magazines for 2004.  Of course the first thing I did in Jan 2005 was buy one - a highly unsuccessful overall endeavour I'd say.  I've definitely had my struggles making resolutions "stick".  But I always want to keep on tryin'!  Unlike my friend Jay, who answered my NYR question with "I don't need any resolutions, I'm perfect" (HA! funny guy! ;)), I am in love with the idea of self improvement.  So for the sake of accountability:

1) JUICE! I was wondering why Jay and Jeff kept laughing when I said "I'm going to juice", but it was explained to me that this is how you reference being on steroids.  Ok, so not that.  I have a gorgeous top of the line juicer that was on our wedding registry that we've used a total of, oh, 5 times (apologies to whoever got me the juicer - fear not, its time has come!).  I've been reading, hearing buzz and watching docs about the benefits of juicing.  I am not sure I'll get past the massive waste of fibre/material that is lost in the process, but the juice is a) delicious b) nutritious and c) a really easy way to get all those vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals I'm missing out on by not eating enough veggies (a consistent problem).  If anyone has any thoughts/wisdom on juicing, I'd love to hear more (I'm a novice as of yet).  I made my first batch last week: carrot-celery-cucumber-spinach-lemon-lime-apple-kiwi-orange-ginger... delish!  Jeff really liked it too (though he said the colour resembled chocolate milk - blame the carrot orange plus spinach dark green - eep!).  I fear I will do all the juicing and he will do all the drinking of said juice!!! ;)

2) Learn French.  Giving up French in grade nine was easy - I was terrible at it, generally don't like being terrible at things, and thought I'd "start fresh" with German in grade ten.  Now, 16 years later, here I am, barely able to remember how to count to ten in German (eins.. zwei?.. drei?!) and sitting in this bilingual country, working for a national, bilingual organization and wishing I could understand what the heck my coworkers in Quebec were saying!  So I'm back.  I am starting sloooooow with the basics (bonjour!) but am committing to several lessons a week until I have some semblance of a working knowledge of the French language. My first lesson: bacon does not come from pickles (who made the words cochon and cornichon so similar anyways!? at least Viv was very nice about it when she patiently explained my error). Well.. bon chance, moi!

3) Stand up for myself.  I have a lot of opinions, feel strongly about many things and fight fiercely when I believe in something.  However, for some reason, there's this giant, gaping, people-pleasing blind spot in my composition that lets me, at times, be a total weenie.  I've been cursed with a desire to make other people happy - and, sure, it makes life easier for those around you when they're all happy, but where does it leave you at the end of the day if you haven't stood up for what you believe in?  I'm tired of people ramming their criticisms of me and my life choices down my throat (note: without me asking - what the heck is going on in this world that people will jump at the chance to tell you what they think you're doing wrong when you didn't even ASK THEM!?  to me that's just rude and I think of Thumper from Bambi - "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all!").  I will still stick to my life mantra of "there's no such thing as right and wrong, there's something in between called getting along" and my hope for a zen-like, drama-free existence, but I'm certainly not going to back down and be pushed around anymore, and I hope the situations in which I have to exercise these new (weak) muscles are few and far between but I am preparing for them because life is too short to live it in a way that doesn't make me proud and happy.

4) Floss.  Seems simple, but this is a huge challenge for me.  For whatever reason, the LAST thing I want to do first thing in the morning or last thing at night is drag a piece of floss through my teeth.  It's like 30 seconds of my day, but I can't seem to get up the willpower to do it.  I look at the floss and then walk away.  What the heck!?  I don't know what I have against it, and I know how amazing it is for my oral health (plus the dentist is always so disappointed when I haven't flossed - it's unbearable to see my hygenist's face when I floss-misbehave, I swear) - so 2013 is the year of making it part of my teeth-brushing routine.  Or so I'm saying.  In writing.  So I'll be accountable.  I have flossed once since New Years and it's January 7.  MUST FLOSS!  Determined!  WILL FLOSS!

This girl seems so happy - can this be me!?

5) Get back to my wedding weight. Of course there's a weight loss goal here - it's new years and I'm the queen of weight loss challenges! Cliche much?! ;) Sometimes I swear I gain it back just to lose it again - I love having a goal to work towards and watching pounds fall off when I really give it my all!!!  So, I've been working for a week now at the dropping of ~9 lbs of weight that has reappeared after my wedding slimdown just over a year ago and I'm happy to report 1.5 lbs has already said goodbye! More importantly, 1 lb of that was fat (I have an intensely analytical bathroom scale) and most importantly I'm putting a heavy emphasis on strength training to replace fat with hardworking muscle, which has been wonderfully rewarding and making me feel strong once again.  I'm also just generally trying to be more active each day, with fun activities like x-country skiing and hiking, less fun activities like keeping the house clean and organized, and working hard on projects like helping my parents install flooring in their basement (you want a workout - install 300+ square feet of laminate flooring and let me know how your butt feels the next day!!).  I'm feeling great so far and ready to keep at it until I get back into some of my favourite pants and get to a weight that I can comfortably maintain.  Stay tuned!

So let's see how 2013 shakes out.  I don't have total die-by-them faith in my resolutions, due to my past track records, but I'm always ready to try anything out, see how it goes, and work at making myself even just a little bit of a better version of moi!