So, Resolutions? Anyone out there make them? I don't. Resolutions always seem wishy-washy to me. "Achieve world peace. Save the chipmunks. Lose weight." I set goals and create habits. Goals are concrete, something you can sink your teeth into. Habits are ways of changing your behavior. To start with, I am working on three habits for the year:
- Do something creative everyday.
- Try a new recipe every week.
- Deal with the mail and 4 additional pieces of paper everyday.
I want to be in the habit of doing something artistic or creative everyday. This could be working on a project, sketching ideas, researching a technique, or just picking up a piece of fabric and making a plan for it. My tendency has been to leave all my creativity til I have a free weekend, then sewing for 10 hours straight. While it is fun to do that, it means I create in fits and starts and only after everything else is finished. I want creativity to be a priority in my life. Then there's also the day I spent 10 hours ironing blocks. I spent the next day with an ice pack or heating pad on my frozen up shoulder. Not fun. By doing something everyday, I avoid damaging parts from over-use.
Habit 2 is to try a new recipe every week. Mr. Belfry and I want to try to eat healthier and try new foods. We also want to use all the cookbooks and cooking magazines we have. So far we've made a couple of really good soups. As we try them, I write the recipe on the calendar, so we'll have a record at the end of the year.
I tried something like this five or six years ago. I wanted to bake a new type of cookie every week. It went really well for about 6 weeks. I found lots of great recipes. The drawback is that most cookie recipes make at least 2 dozen, if not more, cookies. I can't eat a dozen cookies....well...ok...I can eat a dozen cookies in a week. I need to not eat them for my health.
The last habit is to try to tame the paper tiger. I don't know about you all, but I swear the stuff breeds when I'm not looking. I have worked to reduce the amount of crap coming into the house, and it is paying off. I sort the mail as soon as I bring it into the house, usually standing over the recycling bin. Then I go to the shredder if needed. Bills go in their place. After that I look for 4 pieces of paper lying around. This could be anything, a magazine, a torn out article, an old bill, a printout. I pick up and deal with 4 additional items. You would not believe how fast that will improve your home. That's 28 items in a week. Right now, I will admit, a lot of it is getting dumped in the "to file" bin, so I'll have to handle it again, but at least it isn't strewn about the house. My plan is to start scanning stuff into the computer and getting rid of the paper entirely. I'm tired of moving it, we're out of room to store it, and 90% of it we'll never need again.
The pic above is in the Wasatch mountains of Utah. You can just see a tinge of purple where the wildflowers are blooming. This is from the summer of 2008.
That's all for today. Time to go pick a new recipe!
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