Evolution 2015

I always write a New Year's post. Always being a relative term - I only checked for the last two years. So I know I wrote a New Year's post in 2012 and another in 2013. 

I stopped checking for older New Year's posts because I knew they wouldn't be as good as those two. 

I really like those two posts. 

(It feels weird typing that. Not sure if the weirdness is from how rarely I like what I've written or from how rarely I admit it.)

Anyway, I'm still a big fan of small, actionable steps instead of huge goals. Also, the older I get, the more I feel the need to cherish the moment and to find the joy in each day. 

For many years, "love myself more" was one of my New Year's resolutions. But it never occurred to me to have "love my friends/parents/spouse/kids" as a New Year's resolution. It's not that I've ever been a perfect friend, child, wife or mom, either. It's that I knew my imperfections with my loved ones weren't because I didn't love them enough, but because I needed better strategies to cope with stress or I needed to be more expressive or whatever. 

And I've finally realized that the same thing is true with myself. I do love myself. I just don't know how to do it in the best way. I haven't paid attention; I use the same strategies I used 15 years ago. Except they're not making me feel better anymore. 

 Evolution is my word for 2015. 

I always wind up screwing up resolutions anyway. Even last year's, which were designed to be attainable. I didn't take my writing more seriously, I didn't teach the kids how to make me the perfect gin and tonic and I didn't even cut my damn hair. 

But mainly, because my relationship with myself needs to evolve. Sure, I love myself. Sure, I try to practice self-care when I'm stressed out. My problem is that my self-care strategies are habits, not joys. 

Also, to be honest, my relationship with blogging and writing needs to evolve too. As does my relationship with exercise, because it can't just be about reading on the elliptical anymore. 

I'm not going to write all of my small, actionable steps here (aren't you relieved?) but I do promise to check back in with my progress. At least on December 31st, 2015. 

So, do you have a word for 2015? Or some resolutions? Or do you skip over this aspect of the holiday? 

Attainability 2014!

Like most people, I suck at keeping noble New Year's resolutions. If you read anything about making changes in your life, you know that making small, attainable steps is the way to create real change. But you can't tell that from people's typical resolution lists; lose weight, stress less, take up yoga, bring about world peace. . . . . I mean, those aren't small, actionable steps. Which is why normal people typically give up on their resolutions before Valentine's Day.

But not me. Not this year. I have chosen a small, actionable step for each of my 2014 resolutions. If I can accomplish these smaller tasks, then I will have kept my New Year's resolutions and next year I can be all smug* about how I kept my resolutions in 2014.


1. Bring about world peace - I will stop fighting with Phil Robertson fans on Twitter. Less fighting = more peace, right?

2. Lose weight - I will cut my hair soon. I have really thick hair, so I'm relatively sure this will help me lose at least 5 pounds.

3. Become more fit - I will use headphones and watch TV on my phone instead of reading while I'm at the gym, because I always slow down when I'm reading something good.

4. Stress less - I will block the Phil Robertson fans on Twitter, so I don't even have to resist the temptation to fight with them. That's almost as good as meditation, right?

5. Be more patient with my children - I will have a cocktail every night while they're doing their homework.

6. Spend more quality time with my children - I will teach them how to make me the perfect gin and tonic.

7. Be more organized - I will add an "organization" board to Pinterest.

8. Practice self-care regularly - I will stop watching Fox News when I'm at the gym.

9. Save more money - I will stop checking Zulily and ThredUp when I don't actually need something.

10. Take my writing more seriously - I will stop describing my part-time profession as, "writing crap on the internet".

What are your resolutions this year?


*And then in 2015 I can work on being less smug, which really can't be that hard, right? It's like I've set myself up for TWO years of resolution success. I'm a genius! But I won't be a smug one after 2015, I promise. 

My New Year's Resolution

I have always written. Even when I just shoved pages in a drawer and never let them see the light of day, I was writing. In the dark ages when I first started blogging (under another name on a now-defunct blogging network), I saw blogging as a more public form of writing practice. I saw it as a means to an end. Then I saw it as an end in itself. But now even that end seems. . .not what I want it to be.

I don't care if your blog is all reviews, or you just summarize what other people write (Hi, Huffington Post!) or if you exclusively write about your child's nap schedule. I don't care if you started blogging solely as a way to get free copies of crappy Christian novels. I don't care if you've always hated writing but started blogging anyway because it seemed a great way to sell your homemade candles. I really don't.

My blog, though, was supposed to be about the writing. And maybe a little extra income on the side. Okay, and those free circus tickets. But it was really supposed to help me write fiction and all the other forms I wanted to write. It was supposed to help me become a better writer. As well as keep me sane.

It totally worked on the sane thing.

But when I look at what my friend Travis has done with his blog, which I started reading in the second now-defunct internet writing community I was ever in, I feel disappointed in myself. As a side note, however, you should totally read his memoir The Feedstore Chronicles. Super, super, funny.

It's not that I don't have a book deal, or a few hundred thousand blog readers, it's that I've been so sidetracked. Mostly I've used this as a place to whine and vent. Sure, occasionally I was funny, but I didn't take time to turn those rants into something. The truth is, I've rarely edited any of my posts. Okay, that might not be news to you. But it's like I got so caught up in Twitter and Facebook and my own little world that I sort of forgot I was a writer first.

I squandered away all these opportunities I had to write for other websites because I just couldn't think of anything to say that would be easy to write and non-offensive and fit in with what I thought my "brand" should be and did I mention easy? Or I got too caught up in comparing myself to truly gifted bloggers and not wanting to even try to compete.  And that's what finally happened on my blog, too. I kept saying to myself, "You can't write about that - you're not an essayist. You can't write about that - this isn't a memoir. You can't write about that - the PTA moms might read it. You can't write about that - no one else is that obsessed with the Real Housewives. You can't write about that - it'll be too much work for the amount of time you have. You can't write that - someone else has already done it way better than you can." And so on.

Coincidentally, I've been a grouchy bitch for the last few months.

I keep thinking about Karly. She was one of the first mommy bloggers I read that I just totally loved. If you click the link, though, you will see this awesome food blog. Because she quit mommy blogging and became a food blogger.

Not that I'm going to become a food blogger. Unless you all want to learn about how I switched a pasta salad recipe around once and it wasn't a disaster. Yeah, so no, that's not going to work for me. I'm also not going to be a photography blogger, though I love how Lotus has meshed that into her blog. But, um, I'm kind of a lousy photographer.

I tried to be arty. Like the parking lot?

So I'm gonna write. And post it on the internet. Might be fragments of stories, might be memories, might be essays about The Real Housewives or how Newt Gingrich is a hypocrite, might be blogs about being a mommy. I'm going to edit things. I'm going to pretend I don't care what anyone thinks. I'm going to save my whining for Facebook and Twitter, where it belongs.

Thanks for sticking around. :)

Chill the Fuck Out

The only New Year's resolution I've really kept - for years and years - is the one I've never told anyone about. When I thought of it, I was a semi-shallow 17 year old. Now, (slightly) more than 20 years later, I still keep my nails neatly painted (clear counts, okay? My resolution, my rules.)

Now that I've mentioned it, I will probably have a horrible nail accident that prevents me from painting them for the next six months.

Anyway, I don't talk about my resolutions anymore, for the most part. Partly because I tend to keep them so easy and manageable ("I will not let gray show in my hair for at least another 5 years," "I will reorganize the hall closet", "I will stop drinking wine because it gives me a headache") that they don't seem a proper response when someone tells me that her resolution is to run a marathon that year. And partly because I'm superstitious that if I tell everyone then my resolution will fail.

Not that I haven't had plenty resolutions fail anyway. Such as last year's "lose weight" and "stop yelling". So this year one of my resolutions is, "Stop being superstitious about New Year's resolutions".

Another resolution I'm going to share with the 4 of you that still read this blog:

Chill the Fuck Out.

Yep, my resolution is so rebellious that it contains the F word.

Every year, I resolve to be a better mother, a better wife, a better daughter, a better friend. I plan to lose weight (except for 2008, when I planned to at least not gain weight and got pregnant a month later), eat healthier, exercise more, clean the house more, be more organized, take my writing more seriously, manage our limited financial resources better, create interesting projects for my children each day, learn to cook, make more money, learn Spanish, develop a supplemental home curriculum to boost my children's learning, to volunteer at the preschool more and to never yell at my children.

Sure, I"ve made improvements in some of those areas. But mostly, I've just felt like a failure. And failures are not happy people, just in case you didn't know. I know that there are people out there who do all of the above and more. Goddess bless them, it's time to face the fact that I will not be joining their ranks.

Oh, I'm going to keep trying to be better. Much as I might be tempted to give up and turn into Peggy Bundy, I'd be bored in two days weeks. But when I don't succeed, I'm going to chill the fuck out. And when I'm driving myself crazy to match up with the image I have of good mothers/writers/housewives, I'm going to chill the fuck out.

I've started small this week, because I've also finally accepted the fact that I'm better with small steps and not grand gestures. So this week, I've chilled out about the morning. For some reason, no matter how early we get up, I've always felt the need to hurry my kids in the morning. I've been wanting them to dress faster, move faster and eat faster for months (consequently I think that they've started to do things more and more slowly, but that's another post) so that we could get to school on time.

So what if we were grumpy and harassed when I dropped them off? At least I'd fulfilled the good mother checklist of getting them there on time.

On the chill the fuck out approach, I've stoppped hurrying them. I've even stopped setting my alarm, because Lovebug will always wake early and thus so will I. And hearing him play is much nicer than the buzz of my alarm clock. I tell them what to do (and I've hedged my bets by laying out their clothes the night before) and then I just let them do it. I don't rush them. We have conversations and hugs. I don't offer dire warnings of starving until snack time while they talk instead of eating at breakfast.

Here's the strange part: We actually made it to school on time every day this week.

I think I might really like this resolution.