It's a brand new year

Ready or not, it's 2009.

I have plenty of resolutions this year, I want to get caught up on bills and not have to worry about money every day. I want to start finishing my BA and get Jeff signed up for school as well. I want to be the best wife, mom, daughter, sister, granddaughter and friend I can be. I want to keep my house clean.

However - I have two very important goals. First of all is my healthy lifestyle. Yes, I know... it's been the same New Years resolution, half-yearly resolution, monthly resolution for about 12 years now... but this time I think I am ready with a plan that will help me lose the weight. I think that's the key right now. I feel like I am a "healthy person". I like eating and cooking healthy, I actually enjoy being active, and I think whats holding me back is just the extra weight that keeps me tired and lacking of energy. So I have a plan - an eating plan that includes enough calories and of all the right kinds, all the correct nutrition, and healthy foods that are going to help my heart, my brain, and even my blood sugar. I also have developed a calendar of activities that will put me in the right place and the right time with no excuses so that I have work out time... but not enough that I am going to over do it and make myself sick, but enough to make a difference. I also put together a plan for weekly and monthly incentives for my realistic goals of 1.6 pounds per week and 6.6 pounds per month.

Second of all, is our list of family resolutions. I am excited to start doing special days with each kid. They get to choose thier activity and who participates - just mom, just dad, both parents, ore even as a family. We're also going to fit in a service project once a month, a monthly outdoor activity, and a monthly family game or movie night. We also put together chore lists and a reasonable allowance for each kid.

Now - it's all about implementing the plans. The healthy lifestyle plan is easy - I wrote it specifically to make it easy to implement. But the family resolutions take planning, and the keeping up on the cleaning takes planning. I want to plan nights out with the girls, with my mom and sister, time with my brother - there are so many people in my life that I love so much, I want to make this year all about finding the time and energy to show them all how important they are in my life by spending my time with them instead of always being focused on "getting things done".

My family suffered a loss this last week. My uncle Duck died on Tuesday. He recently found out he had cancer, but he died of a heart attack in the hospital about 11AM. I am greiving, not only for the loss of a family member I haven't made the effort to have a close relationship with, but for the loss my dad and my grandma especially are feeling right now. I am grieving for the loss of opportunity to have a relationship with him, to tell him one last time that I love him, and the loss of a man who meant the world to people that mean the world to me. It is also a reminder that time is short - he was only 55 years old. We don't have much time on this earth to share with those we love. I have wasted so much of mine already on things that aren't that important. Focused on the wrong "things" instead of the right "people". This year I plan to start on my journey towards changing that.

Wish me luck :)