Reso-what?!

"What is your New Year's resolution?".  I hate that question.  Can there possibly be a more stress loaded thought?  What do I commit to change within the next year?  As if I don't think about what I'd like to improve about myself or my life everyday! For a perfectionist like myself, the thoughts that stumble through my head are endless and overwhelming.  I think to myself:

1. I will exercise on a regular basis and eat clean the majority of days (honestly,  I don't know what the nitty gritty of "clean eating" involves, but it sounds like it's something I should do!)

2. I will do yoga at least six days a week

3. I will learn to meditate

4. I will learn to use all of the features on my DSLR

5. I will finish scrapbooking for the last 7 years and keep it all up to date

6. I will maintain an impeccable budget

7. I will learn to relax, especially when the house is calling me to clean it

8. I will read books to my girls every night that I am home

9. I will organize.  Everything. 

10. I will finish all of the planned projects that are going through my head

11. I will do a fun crafty thing with the kids each holiday

12. I will organize all of our digital photos

Those are the ones that come to mind immediately.  Now that I look at my list it seems that I've summed up all 1000 items I've pinned on Pinterest!  Why do we hold ourselves to impossible standards?  Why do we set ourselves up for failure?  I know that I will never organize everything, but when asked what I'd resolve to change in 2012 I cannot help but think this.... and it nags at me! 

There are a few that I'd should take to heart, but not to the extreme.  I love reading books to my girls, but when it's 8:30pm and I've only slept a few hours after night shift,  the world will not end if I don't do it.  Yes, I should exercise and eat healthy, but with the intention of being healthy, not to get an unattainable figure.  Yoga and meditation are great, but it takes something away when I feel pressure to do it.  There is a lot that I can learn with my camera, but I am already pretty happy with the pictures that I take.  Organizing, scrapbooking and impeccable budget, all of the projects... I should just be realistic - it's NEVER all going to happen!  Relaxing?  Accept that the fact that is happens most easily after 2 glasses of wine!  Crafts... much more fun when I don't beat myself up if it doesn't happen. 

Hmmm... maybe I should write down my resolutions and burn them?  Watch the ideas which I feel that I should commit to change blow away in the wind.  Embrace that fact that I try my best most every day to be the kind of mother, wife, friend, daughter, self that I hope to be.  Accept that what I have and what I am is enough.  I do not need perfection.

When I first saw this I immediately thought of the person "right in front of me".  I think this is meant for when I look in the mirror!

Feel good things

We are so close to moving into our new house! Just two more weeks! Wait... TWO more weeks?! I haven't started to pack a thing, I have no extra days off of work, and between now and then we'll celebrate two birthdays, an anniversary, and probably buy a car. And then we will move to a new house where we are already formulating lots of exciting endeavors and projects. Lots of time consuming, very involved projects. That will take... years.

Those of you that know me well know that these things cause me no stress. And when I'm feeling this kind of "no stress" I'm completely full of patience and serenity, making me the mom I always hope to be. So I'm never short-tempered, frustrated, and completely impatient with my husband and children. Yeah, right. Which, of course, makes me feel worse and behave worse and then feel even worse. I know that we all go through this, but it never makes it any easier when it happens. And then sometimes I find a quote, poem, or blog that speaks to me. It reaches me deep in my soul and makes me feel like it will all be ok... that I will be ok. So I'll print it off and put it in my "book of feel good things". When I do this, I'll look at my other "feel good things" and then, well, I'll feel good! It's amazing the power that words can have! So read here for some "feel good things"...