Losing the Baby Weight and Other New Year's Resolutions

I'm pretty useless at keeping New Year's resolutions. So much so, that a couple of years ago I made it my resolution to stop making them. But, this year I've decided to give it another go and I've made three.

I weigh as much as this

The first is to lose the baby weight. I use the term baby weight loosely as to write that I have to conveniently overlook two important facts. Firstly, the baby in question is nearly four and a half years old (yes years not months), and secondly, I am actually heavier now than I was just after Monkey was born. Now I'm sure I could still blame him for some of it - after all who doesn't turn to wine and chocolate when the parenting game gets hard - but the time has come to stop making excuses, take my hand out of the cookie jar and my arse back on the cross trainer. Wish me luck. I think I'll need it.




My second resolution is to grow my freelance business this year. So far I have been working at it only part time really but with Monkey off to school later this year, I want to see if I can grow it enough to make it worthwhile continuing. In other words I want to see if I can grow it enough so I can continue with a job I can do in my pyjamas rather than re-entering the real workforce and having to put on proper clothes. This means putting work before play for a little while, something which this year the procrastinator in me has had trouble doing. Using Twitter and Google+ is work though right? I'm networking, honest.

This year I'm hoping to organise myself better so I can get the work done and still have time to do some other things. I'm also planning to get off the computer a bit more and get back to some other activities I used to love and have time for in the years before Monkey.

My third resolution is to do the simple things and do them consistently.

Simple things like:

• putting a fresh carrier bag in the recycling bin rather than having to fish out all the mangled cardboard on rubbish day and spend 10 minutes trying to stuff it in a bag.
• wiping the table each night after dinner rather than waiting until so many crumbs have accumulated that they could probably constitute a meal in themselves and then having to scrub it.
• putting my clothes in the laundry hamper at night rather than dump them on the floor - I know, I know it is something a teenager would do, but I often go to bed after Hubby is asleep and rooting around for the hamper in the dark is too much like hard work.
• checking the bathroom cabinets before I write a shopping list rather than having to run back to the store two days later after running out of toothpaste.

I'm hoping that spending five minutes doing the simple things will save time in the long run. I'm pleased to report that I have in fact already kept this resolution as tonight I put a bag in the recycling drawer. Yay me. Only another 51 weeks of remembering left.

I don't know how well I'll stick to my resolutions this year, but I'm going to try. So I'm going to get on the cross trainer....just as soon as I've finished the mince pies.

Do you make New Year's resolutions? What have you resolved to do this year?