Leaving the Asylum

Is this really how this year is going to start for me….really? With everyone else in my house still happily sound asleep, I am cleaning up a gallon of Gatorade that decided to spill in my refrigerator, well technically it spilled into the bottom of my fridge, in the door, in the drawers, all over the food, and all over the floor. ::sigh:: Such is the life of a stay at home mom, the messes are never all gone.

This stay at home mom life is new to me. I’ve only been doing it for about six months and every time I think I am getting the hang of it something catches me off guard and I have to reevaluate, re-plan and sometimes restart but nothing has caused me to reconsider my choice and head back into the workforce at this junction of my life.

If you’d asked me, even 5 years ago, if I would ever consider being a stay at home mom or be happy as one I’d have laughed out right at you. Its amazing how things can change your perspective and priorities. Will I ever go back to work? I am sure of it, once my family does not need me as much at home, I will be heading right back out into the full time therapist world….but for now this is my purpose and calling and with it comes many challenges and changes.

As the last year comes to a close and the new one begins I am finding myself struggling with the concept of New Years Resolutions. Aren’t those just things people create with the plan to break them? Well not me and not my family, these goals we have for this year are not ones I want us to “set and forget” so I refuse to call them resolutions. Instead I am going to call them life goals, and begin treating them as things that are to be planned out and thoughtfully executed. I do fully believe if you put things down in written form it helps you focus, plan and achieve them easier, maybe its the therapist in me. So here are three of the top goals our family has for this year.

Goal 1: Reduction of Debt – This goal is probably the highest on our priority ladder and its gotten there because it includes at many pieces of most of our other smaller family goals, such as: eating out less, making more items from scratch, living a more simple life, finding entertainment in non-costly ways, finding ways to reuse, repair and re-purpose items in our lives instead of running out and purchasing new things and cleaning up our credit score so we can find and purchase our own home where we can have our gardens, berry bushes and fruit trees.

Goal 2: Work toward better health: Notice I did not say “lose weight” because honestly this goal is more than just a weight thing for this family. We all have found we look and feel better when we are eating better and exercising. With this in mind, this year we are looking to increase our activity level, work to challenge our minds perhaps by learning a new skill, for example: I want to learn to crochet and my husband is returning to playing the trombone. We will be heading to medical professionals for issues we have been ignoring, such as broken wisdom teeth while also continuing to work with those we currently see on our ongoing health goals. Under this umbrella is also working to eat healthier.

Goal 3:  Practicing better self care:  This goal is more for my husband and I, however it hopefully will trickle down to the girls as well. Both my husband and I are very bad about sacrificing our own self care to ensure that everything else it taken care of first. Sounds pretty normal right? Well it might be but its not healthy. Let me put my therapist hat on for a moment. A person who is always doing for others and worrying about or working on things that can or can not be controlled will very quickly wear themselves out. Once worn out a person is less focused, less motivated, less patient, and over all less productive so really not taking time for yourself actually makes the things you need to get done harder to do in the long run. My husband was an avid bike rider and has set a goal for himself to get back into that once again. While I used to ride horses and hope to begin back in riding lessons shortly. Beyond that I hope to pick up yoga once again and am encouraging my husband to resume his meditation practice. We are also as a family going to be instituting a half an hour each evening for prayer and meditation practice.

In some ways these three goals encompass a huge piece of our family plans for this year and in other ways they barely scratch the surface of our dreams. What are you hoping to accomplish this year? I challenge you to identify one small goal for yourself, just one at least to start and see where it grows. What ever your goals are I hope you take time for yourself and use the brightest colors you can to paint your new year.

**Garfield belongs to Jim Davis and has no official ties to this webpage. We just adore him. 🙂