My three resolutions for 2014 and my progress towards them with two-thirds of this year behind me…
1. Stop Yelling.
I decided to try to go an entire year without yelling at Theo and Dexter. It wasn’t long before I had a couple of relapses and I quickly noticed a pattern. It wasn’t them – it was me. I was yelling when I was tired and/or PMSing. I never put it together before until I started tracking how long it’d been between my meltdowns where I totally lost my cool. My tolerance and patience is sliced in half when I’m hormonal – who knew? I know that shaming my kids is not okay. Humiliating them with my size and power is unacceptable. I’m not doing that anymore, so I call this an overall success so far in 2014. Not perfect by any means, but better. While I can’t say that I haven’t raised my voice out of annoyance or frustration, I’m MUCH more aware of my own mood and how it impacts my parenting. The result at this point is that I am noticing a calmer tone in the home.
2. Run 300 miles.
Pretty much a major fail. My plan was to run about 2 miles three times a week all year. Lofty, but that’s what dreams are, right? I blame the practically immediate demise of this dream on an uncooperative body. I had two bouts of strep throat, a stomach bug, and THE flu in the first 6 weeks of 2014. When I tried to get back to running in February, I had intense knee pain. I injured myself somehow, to the point that standing up from a chair or walking from one end of my office building to the other was painful. I had pain-free days here and there into the springtime, but I averaged just a handful of runs per month. August has been my best running month all year with my longest run ever – 3.55 miles. The day after that, my knees and ankles told me to back off and then the humidity here got ridiculous. I have slacked waaay off the last couple of weeks, but I’m looking forward to getting back into my routine of three runs per week soon. Not anywhere close to reaching my goal, but it hasn’t been completely forgotten.
3. Take a photo every day and document them weekly on my blog.
I have completely kept up with this. I have take every picture I have posted and every picture has been taken with my DSLR. No cheating! (This is not a requirement of the project, but a challenge to myself). I can’t wait to compile the year of photos into a little book. The bonus is what I hope is an improvement in my photography skill and knowledge. My interest for the hobby has certainly grown, if nothing else.
So there you have it — did you make resolutions and have you kept them? I guess you could say I am at about 1.5 out of 3?
xo,
~C~