Jumping on the self improvement bandwagon

I have been thinking a lot about self improvement and living in such a way that sets a better example for my children. Of course I made specific New Year's Resolutions, but I have never really set a resolution and held myself accountable to its completion. I was recently inspired by a blogger I like to read. Courtney Kendrick is turning 37 and blogged the 37 things she hopes to accomplish this year. You can read them here. Now, Courtney is a well known blogger and I am only a legend in my own mind, so I do not have grand goals that involve famous musicians and exclusive film festivals. Also, I am turning 48 this year and there is no way I am making 48 goals, so I am going to go with "13 Goals in 2013". I think cjane will understand. I will have these goals written here on the blog and therefor I will be holding myself accountable. I may even update occasionally when a goal is met. Isn't this exciting? I can literally feel the excitement! Or maybe I have gas. I don't know...

1. I am going to learn something new. I have a new camera. It is digital and it is able to shoot  both automatic and manual photos. I am going to learn how to use that sucker! I am eager to tap into my artistic side. I rarely do that any more. I don't have a huge amount of artistic ability. Okay, I hardly have any. But I am going to tap into it, dang it! The bottom line is, prepare yourselves for an onslaught of Basso kids pictures.

2. I will go to a concert at The Cain's Ballroom. Of course, this will take some convincing of the guy who will be buying my tickets. I hope he wants to go see They Might Be Giants on March 13th. I hope he is reading this and wondering how he can help me achieve my goals. 

3. I will finally lose that pesky postpartum weight. Never mind that my "baby" is almost eight years old. 

4. I will get off my butt and work towards participating in the Tulsa Run in October. I have been promising Mike I would do this for years. I am grounded in reality enough to realize I will not be running the full marathon. But I fully intend to sign up for the Fun Run and do it with all of my kids and my husband. 

5. I will adjust our menus and cook more clean and healthy meals so that it becomes a lifestyle rather than a "diet". We do enjoy eating fresh fruits and vegetable and only occasionally eat processed foods. I would like to eliminate them completely from our diet. Also, less red meat, more fish, less starchy vegetables, more leafy greens, less white sugar, flour and pasta and more wheat and grains. I bet you can't wait until I invite you to dinner!

6. All of our closet spaces and attic storage areas will be organized and clutter free. Better yet, they will stay that way. I am tired of clutter and disorganization. I would like my kids to learn to be more respectful of the spaces we have to store and organize our things. That hall closet of ours that is the Black Hole of Calcutta needs a plan and we need to stick to it. 

7. Pizza Night is back. For a while, Friday night was Pizza Night. We made our own dough and topped our own pizzas. I'm not sure why we quit. I guess we just got busy and stopped making time for it. Well, it's time to bring it back. The last time we did it, we made individual pizzas. That was really fun. We had a contest to see whose pizza looked the best. Yeah..I'm pretty sure I nailed it.

8. I want to go ice skating. It has been a really, really long time since I have skated. I may end up in traction, but I want to do it! It may have to wait until next winter, but the outdoor rink at the BOK center seems fun.

9. I'm going to try to be a little more selfish with my time. I do not regret that I spend most of my time doing things for my family. I consider it my full time job, sorta. Well, I tend to forget to do certain things for myself that affect the way I feel. Like not keep on top of my hair cuts, or forget to use my foot scrubs and lotions. This year, as soon as I get my hair styled, I would like to stay on top of it instead of resorting to the good 'ol headband when my hair outgrows the style. (like right now)

10. More board games, less bored games. I love playing games with the kids, but lately I have allowed them to fill their "I'm bored!" time with TV and computers. Since I don't watch the TV, we end up in different parts of the house. I don't like that! I want us to do more things together. I just taught Anna how to play Backgammon and I think we need to have some marathons. Clare has been pestering me to play Monopoly. We have more games than Toys R Us, a table in the game room, plenty of players...time to play some games!

11. Birthdays. I get overwhelmed. I get lazy. I send facebook notes instead of birthday cards. I really want to make sure my friends and family know I am thinking of them on their special day, so I want to get cards and use actual snail mail. I know that it sounds like an easy goal to achieve  but it really is a challenge for me. I have already missed a couple of nieces birthdays in early 2013. Time to get going on this one!!

12. Let it go. I don't really consider myself a grudge holder, but sometimes I find myself having a pity party for something that may have happened during the Reagan administration. Or hanging on to hurts that should have long ago been healed. I had a rough year socially a couple of years ago. I still find myself licking the wounds and feeling like an unforgivable chump, isolating myself from people and activities. It is time to let it all go. I have great friends that I enjoy and an awesome family. What more does a girl need? It's harder to measure the success or failure of this particular goal, but I have found a great personal exercise that I have started to employ when I feel those old feelings of worthlessness come creeping up. I feel more positive and therefore am easier to be around. I hope to soon feel like socializing again. 

13. Procrastinate less...starting tomorrow. Ever since I was in 7th grade and waited until the last day of Christmas vacation to write a research paper, I have promised myself that I would quit procrastinating. That was followed by a high school and college career full of last minute runs to the library, caffeine fueled all-nighters and, admittedly, half-assed work cranked out at zero hour. Now that I have kids of my own, I use my foibles as a cautionary tale. I still find myself rushing to do things at the last minute, though, and frankly, I drive myself nuts. "When will you learn?", my mom is probably thinking. My mom doesn't procrastinate. My husband doesn't procrastinate. Half of my kids don't procrastinate. (and the other half...I'm sorry. You are a lot like me) 2013 will be my year to stop procrastinating. The fact that this New Year Resolution type blog post wasn't written until late February should give you an idea of how #13 is going...

What I think happened this week

I have a few blog posts sitting in the drafts folder. After a long week of being sick, I tried to read through them to edit, and darned if I couldn't make it through a single one! If I don't feel like reading them, you sure as heck won't! So, instead, I'm going to post a little recap.

Things that happened this week.

*Since we were ill, after dropping the recovered kids back at school, Mike and I lay still in our bed, taking Ibuprofen, drinking NyQuil, sipping tea, contemplating the profundity of life....and watching Netflix. Lots and lots of Netflix.

*I woke each morning and roused sleeping children, fed them pop tarts, drove them to school and then went back to bed. I don't remember doing these things very well, but clearly I did them. It reminds me of those times when I was younger, driving home from parties and....oh, never mind.

*I started to play a game on Facebook called Candy Crush Saga. It required no skill, no interaction with others, had pretty, shiny candy coated shapes to visually stimulate me and made me feel like I was accomplishing something. I apologize to everyone who had to suffer through the endless notifications alerting the world to the fact that I was creating those crazy candy combos and crushing those sugar coated bombs with striped jelly beans. It's almost as bad as Spotify ratting you out for listening to Justin Bieber.

*I fed the children. They had a meal each night that I prepared for them. The meals weren't always square and some forms of frozen fare were most definitely consumed. But they ate, dang it. I would like to thank the Tyson geniuses who created dinosaur shaped nuggets.

*The kids bickered. I know this virus left me feeling pretty darned grumpy and I guess the kids weren't immune to the grump. They bickered about anything and everything and aside from our occasional correcting lectures, they pretty much heard nothing from us. I just didn't have the wherewithal.

*I read a couple of books. I may have to re-read them now that the green haze has worn off. Green being the color of NyQuil.

*I started some laundry. I folded a couple of loads, the kids folded some and put it away and some is still clean in baskets. I did no housework. I doled out the kitchen chores to anyone recovered enough to eat food. It was done well enough for a sick house.

That's about it. It wasn't an exciting week, but kind of eerie now that I am on the other side of it and recalling all of the things I did in a sort of sick stupor. Like a distant, foggy memory. How was YOUR week?