New Year’s Resolutions

Most years, I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. I feel like we can be as intractable or changeable as we desire any day of the year, no real need to focus it all at the beginning of a New Year. Sometimes I go for it, though, because it can be easier to track a change and when it started if it started at the beginning of a week, month, year, etc.

One year, my resolution was to floss more. Actually, that was my resolution for several years, but one year it finally stuck. Later that year, I was pleasantly surprised in what a difference it made in the amount of tartar on my teeth. That kept me doing it. I don’t floss every day, but certainly more often than I used to. (Thanks for that reminder, just went and flossed my teeth…).

Last year, my resolution was to eat more pancakes. I’m not a big pancake eater, as Ted can’t eat them anymore, and often Maya isn’t in the mood, so then I make the batter, cook and eat mine, and the rest sits in the fridge until it turns a disgusting grey color and I throw it out. I could certainly buy a mix where you just add water, and therefore make smaller batches of batter, but I prefer the homemade recipe my friend Paul sent me last year. Since I don’t eat pancakes all that often, it was again a pretty easy resolution to keep. I started out strong, eating pancakes every weekend or two for a few months. Then I kind of forgot about it, as one often does with resolutions, and that was that. However, since my resolution was just to eat *more* pancakes in 2021 than I had in 2020, and I did that within the first month, I consider it a success. As a matter of fact, I made pancakes the day after Christmas, so I ended out the year with them as well. Unlike the flossing, I didn’t really intend to make this a lifestyle change forever, it was just a fun personal challenge.

This year, my resolution is going to be a bit more practical, and I started early a few weeks ago. I want to declutter my house. Ted is thrilled, he hates clutter. I am much more of a ‘what if I need it someday’ type person, or perhaps, ‘no, I don’t really want it, but it’s perfectly good and I don’t want it to go to waste’ type person. Also, I get sentimental, and I have a lot of things that I inherited from my mom and my Grandma. Maya and I watched a documentary about Fast Fashion, and then I walked another one called ‘The Minimalists: Less is Now” on Netflix. Cleaning out my Grandma’s house last year really motivated me to get rid of a lot of clutter, and to define clutter differently. I generally think of clutter as a busy, crowded area, and things that should be thrown away and are useless. But a better way to think of it is, ‘Do I use this, do I think I truly WILL use this, do I even want to use this?’ I’m not sure I want to go all in and minimilaize my house, but I would like to look around and not see clutter everywhere. We’ve gotten rid of some clothes and books in the last few months, but now I am resolved to being a bit more brutal.

One tool that has helped me with this is a local ‘buy nothing’ group on Facebook. It is easier for me to get rid of things if I am not throwing them in the garbage. My goal is to tackle a couple of cabinets every month, whether that turns out to be every weekend or not. I cleaned out our pantry cabinet, and threw away 3 bags of old expired stale things that were tucked way in the back of the cabinet. That felt wasteful, but also good to be rid of them. I also came across some not old stale things, things I had recently purchased but did not need. Like a bag of whole wheat flour. Whole wheat flour doesn’t last as long as white flour, so I tend to try to buy the smallest package I can find, but this year all I could find was the regular sized bag. So I posted it on the local buy nothing group, along with some semolina flour and a couple of other items, and YAY, someone wanted them! Same with the cupboard full of paper plates and plastic utensils. Who knew you could give those things away? Not me. I also gave away an old decanter and some sherry glasses that belonged to my mom’s best friend from 40 years ago. They were pretty, and I kind of liked having them, but I had never used them, not even once. So I gave them to someone who (I hope) will get good use out of them.

There’s always Goodwill or Salvation Army or a local charity that has a store, also. They will take items, though I never know how much of it gets thrown away. If some of your things may be valuable, you can take them to a consignment shop. I don’t have a lot of energy for that, and neither does Maya, which is too bad…she donated 8 bags of clothing the other day, I suspect she could have made at least a little money off of it. But the last time we tried that, they didn’t take much and she didn’t make much, and she ended up coming home with more clothes, so maybe it’s not all that great of an option.

Another way to declutter is to use all of something before you buy more. Seems obvious, but sometimes it is not. Ted, for example, has decided that he is going to read all of the books he has waiting for him before he buys any more. My goals are not so ambitious, but as I pulled out my note cards to write ‘Thank you’ notes today, I realized I only had one card left that was specific to the task, and quite a few that are just pretty pictures and blank inside. Some of them have been sent to me by charities hoping for a donation, some I have purchased when perusing museum gift shops, that kind of thing. I decided to copy Ted, and use all of these before I buy any new cards. That feels good, I sometimes have a LOT of boxes of cards piled up around me.

I read a couple of tips about resolutions that seemed helpful. One is if you are trying to get a little bit more exercise into your day, to take exercise snacks. Just like you might get up and go get a handful of nuts or a cookie or something as a snack, you can get up and do some pushups against the wall, or have some light weights nearby to do some bicep curls. Small little ‘snacks’ like this are not going to get one into fabulous shape, they are not enough to make a huge difference. But they can make SOME difference if you stick with them, and it doesn’t hurt to give it a try. Another tip was to link something that you would do anyway to something that you want to add to your day. The author of that article said every time he pees, he does 3 pushups. Not sure that would work in an office setting, but if you are home it would, and even in an office you could do wall pushups or something like that. Not a big change, just something a little better than nothing.

Along that line, I would like to stretch more often and do some light weights during downtime at my desk. I haven’t figured out what I want to tie them to quite yet. Perhaps the bathroom break is a good one. Or just sitting down at my desk.

How about you? Have you decided on any resolutions for 2022? And if so, are they more temporary things that you would like to add for one year (like my pancakes) or more permanent things that you would like to incorporate into your life, like flossing your teeth or reading more books?