My resolutions for 2011

It's a new year! Can you believe it? You better believe I'll be writing it wrong for months to come.

It's time for some resolutions. Last year I didn't really make any except "have a baby" because I simply couldn't imagine what life would be like after that. This year, I have a better idea, though I do know the baby will be growing and changing the whole time -- in fact, he won't be a baby anymore by the time 2011's gone.

(One moment while I go sob. Where is my tiny little newborn peanut I used to have?!)

All right, here's what I resolve:

1. To eat better. I want to cut sugar out almost completely. (My new ice cream maker ensures that I will at least be eating some.) And I'd like to work on reducing my grains again. After trying things both ways, with and without grains, I think I can see that I felt better without them. Refined grains, like white rice and white bread, just turn to sugar and turn my system haywire the way sugar does. Whole grains are better, but they are kind of indigestible. I hope to experiment a bit with grains, soaking them and making sourdough, trying to find what will go down best for John and me.

2. To pray better. Yeah, I'll just come out there and admit that I'm a horrible pray-er. I just don't pray nearly as much as I should, and my life requires a bit more virtue than I can come up with on my own. I also want to read the Epistles -- the only part of the Bible I haven't read much of.

3. To be a better housekeeper. I consider myself to be a good mother. I think I do pretty much what I should in this regard; I make mothering a priority and I flatter myself that I do a decent job most of the time. But I'm a lousy homemaker. We both kind of still live like college students in this regard. We'd like a clean house, but we generally expect this to happen without effort -- and when there's dishes being made, and a kid's toys getting scattered, and laundry coming out of our ears, the college-student method doesn't really work. I'm working out a schedule to get myself to do more cleaning, which I hope to blog about soon.

4. To buy a house. This has been our financial goal for some time. It's going to require a lot of scrimping, a lot of saving, and a lot of compromise -- because on our budget, we can't be picky. If we want it to be within 45 minutes of DC and have a roof, we'd have to pay more. Right now we're thinking of moving further into Virginia, which is where we'd really prefer to live anyway, but it does lengthen John's commute. It's very sad to have even less time with him, but of all our possible choices, it seems the best. We simply can't afford to keep renting. As soon as we manage to scrape together the money to put down for a house, we'll be saving significant amounts of money every month. And that's something I get very excited about!

(On this topic, we went out looking at houses today in the area we're thinking of. Quite educational -- a lot of those houses were on top of a mountain. Very scenic, very picturesque -- and also very hard to reach! The roads were mostly gravel, up and down this mountain. I was shrieking, "You don't want to go this fast on gravel!" and John would calmly reply, "I'm not going this fast on purpose; my foot is on the brake." Oh, that is so comforting! I felt sure we were going to slide right off the mountain. Then we ventured down the steep gravel driveway of our favorite house. No trouble, even in our big van ... until we edged a little off the gravel trying to turn around. We couldn't get traction -- kept spinning our rear wheels in the mud. We kept rocking back to get traction further down the hill, only to end up stuck about 12 feet down the hill from where the driveway ended. Oops. We had to call AAA to come winch us back up again. Very embarrassing, especially as the friendly neighbor next door asked if we wanted to come over to wait for the tow truck. Bet this happens all the time. Ah well, at least we now know two things about this house: 1. Driveway needs work. 2. Nice neighbors.)

5. To be less patient with my husband. Whaaaat? Yes, unfortunately I seem to have two settings in my reactions: react instantly and without thinking (whereupon I always say something utterly stupid) or, even worse, not answer at all, but shut my mouth, resolve to "be patient," and then 50 or 60 offenses later, flip the heck out because I've been resenting every single one of them along the way. So, I admit, it's not exactly patience that's my problem. Just forbearance. I've been very forbearing in the name of patience, and it's backfired a lot. John expects me to be forthright with my problems; he has never demanded that I censor myself in any way. So why am I wasting my time holding back and getting resentful? No idea. So my goal is to think for five or ten seconds before snapping back an answer, but not for a week. That does no one any good. No one is hurt by my saying, "No, I think you're wrong," or, "Hey, that hurt my feelings." But I am hurt when I don't speak up. So I resolve to cut that self-righteous forbearance out. If I'm upset enough that I'm going to resent it, I'll just speak out.

6. To get another baby cooking. Well, that one's more of a hope than a resolution. Till Marko's nursing less, nothing I do is going to achieve much in that direction. But I would love to get pregnant next summer, and have a baby when Marko's about two. I would also love that baby to be a girl. But there I really truly do have no control.

I think that's enough resolutions for one year, don't you think?