As 2013 rapidly comes to a close, I’ve been thinking about whether I lived up to my new year’s resolutions. I’ve never really made any before, because I’ve always believed them to be bullsh*t. I’m usually the chick who goes on about how we should make resolutions and improvements all year round blah blah, but I must have been in some kind of post-Christmas cheer fog or something! I don’t regret it, though. I must have made them because I really needed to at the time. So, here’s how I went:
Look after my body and mind.
OK, so I didn’t lose 7kg. In fact, from day 1 of 2013, I have only lost about 2kg all year. My weight fluctuated as I comfort ate my way through some stress – something I’ll always be working on (and currently am with the help of my fitbit which I purchased to help me track everything).
BUT… I did make more regular hair appointments than usual. If by ‘usual’ I mean more than twice a year. Still. An improvement. It can be difficult to remember/plan/find appointment times that allow me to leave the Little Mister. But I did it. Go me! I couldn’t find time/money to get my nails done professionally, but I did do my own nails all year. I treated myself to some bottles of OPI polish every now and then, and made sure to replace chipped (or more likely obliterated) polish with fresh home manicures/pedicures (some more aesthetically pleasing than others). Just that small gesture towards myself did actually help me to feel good.
I bought more make up products (lipsticks and eyeliner) and used some nice facial scrubs/cleansers, but I know I could definitely invest in myself a bit more. I did finally (this month – scraping in there) purchase some much needed bronzer and mascara though. Yay.
Overall – a win 🙂
Organise gifts/special occasions ahead of time so I can be creative.
Look, I’ll be honest. I wasn’t as awesome at this as I hoped to be, but I did do marginally better. It might have been borne of necessity as you have to manage your time better when you have a toddler in your midst. I haven’t felt as out of control of it all as I did last year, so I’d call that a win.
I bought my November child his birthday (and some of his Christmas) presents MID YEAR at the toy sales. So that’s something. While I didn’t do so well with gifts for friends, I did budget more carefully so I could contribute to group gifts for friends a bit more often. I do have my Pinterest board of cool gift ideas, but to be honest (as happens with these things), it’s not really gone anywhere.
I don’t feel guilty about everything anymore, which I think is the key. I think the guilt was the whole motivation behind this resolution. I’ve realised that while there are some “super mum” types out there who can coordinate parties and gifts way in advance, somehow appearing to be everything to everyone, I am not one of them. I do my best because I care, but I don’t beat myself up as much as I did last year when it falls short of my own expectations. I can always improve, that’s for sure and I am appreciating that with the Little Mister getting older, I do find I have the ability to use BOTH of my hands (and a percentage of my brain) to get stuff done as time goes on.
Improve my blog.
I made a joke about how having a MacBook Air would change EVERYTHING, thinking it would never happen on our budget, but lo and behold, my April birthday brought with it the very baby that I am typing this post on now. Mr Unprepared did a little crowd funding (i.e. asking all our family members for a little help) and I was so grateful to everyone. I now can blog on a little laptop with a reliable battery. It doesn’t take 50 years to start up or shut down like my old dinosaur laptop. I can sit anywhere with it (yeah yeah I know that’s the point) and still keep an eye out for the Little Mister while I quickly post something or take care of some home admin. Also? Everything looks pretty and I kind of like not using Windows anymore. I feel like Carrie Bradshaw (but with less shoes and a kid and …OK so we’re nothing alike).
I asked my gorgeous interwebby friend Em to help me design some bloggy things and it took a little tweaking but I’m really enjoying the look of my blog at the moment. So much nicer than what I started the year with. Thanks, lady!!
I also started submitting some of my posts to iVillage Australia’s iBlog Friday round ups. I was a winner twice and that meant being republished in full twice too (not to mention some cute prizes). It felt really nice to share my writing with a wider audience and I am grateful for the other blogs I’ve started reading as a result.
I finally found the courage to invite more ‘real life’ friends/family to follow me and it’s kind of fun not being completely anonymous anymore. I feel like I’ve grown into myself a lot more since starting the blog. As for its Facebook page, I’ve got a whole entire hundred and thirty something followers haha. I might still be a very small fish, but I am grateful for all of you. It’s more than I started the year with! 🙂
Home Makeoverrrrrrrrr!
So…what did I get done?? Not a whole lot. As usual, I had ideas. As usual, I didn’t follow through as life got busy or unpredictable. So…we removed a garden bed and let the grass grow over it? I bought some new fabric to re-style some canvas wall hangings and then decided it wasn’t right? I vacuumed a few times? I pinned stuff on Pinterest?
Don’t worry. I’m still super excited about making our house better. We’re going to paint the whole facade in new colours and I’m going to make the Little Mister an awesome ‘big boy’ bedroom in 2014. Honest. I mean it. Truly. We will.
Date nights/days.
It’s hard to find time to date each other, but Mr Unprepared and I did focus more on ourselves as a couple this year. We went on a couple of dates at least – mostly during the day haha. This meant saying no to other people a bit more (something we found hard at first) and asking for more babysitting favours (also hard to do because I hate asking for help – I hate putting people out), but all in all it was an improvement.
Even though getting out as a couple (child free) can prove challenging, I think we did try harder to focus on couple time and improving our relationship. So I think the spirit of this resolution definitely shone through. As funny as it sounds, spending dedicated time as a little family even felt like dating because it was always time spent out of love. Focusing more on quality time has been so nice.
I don’t regret putting “us” first at all.
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Overall, I think I did fairly well. Even though I didn’t quite nail a couple of the resolutions I made, I still feel a shift in my mindset towards those goals. I think having resolutions did really help me focus on where I wanted to be by the end of this year. The jury is still out on whether I’ll make resolutions for 2014, but I know I can continue to improve on the ones I made for 2013.
How did you go? How do you feel about new year resolutions? x
