Januarialistic

I'm not a resolutions person, but I'm certainly not immune to the January fresh start syndrome. I mean, you'll never catch me breaking in a shiny new gym membership on January 2nd (that's practically asking for failure), but I do like turning that calendar page and feeling sort of like the world can be what I make of it. Of course, I have yet to purchase that new calendar this year, but still! The year is fresh and shiny, and there are a few very specific ways in which I would like to try to be/do better this year:

1.) Punctuality: I have spent my entire life thus far doing battle with the clock, and the clock always seems to win. However, since starting my new job, I have really been working on being better in this area. I have a 40-ish minute commute and I have been getting in before 8:30 every day. I am (sadly) super proud and impressed with myself over this one and very much would like to keep it up. (What? I admitted it was sad.)

2.) Work: My last job was pretty emotionally damaging, and it left me with a sick, intense dread every morning, again every night once it was time for bed, and generally again during the panicked, gut-wrenching hours of 3-5 am. It was like Sunday nights as a kid, but all jacked up on ridiculous steroids from hell. As a result, I ended up with some pretty unhealthy feelings about the office. My new job is so, so different (THANK GOD), but I am still working really hard to make sure the old anxiety and bitterness does not creep in. Again, so far, so good. I'm really focusing on the fact that we're there to share information with each other, to assist each other in making the best possible decisions; it's not all one long, torturous final exam on which my entire future rests. (Have I mentioned how movies featuring associates getting screwed over/throwing their careers away are a total law firm PTSD trigger? Watched "Trouble With the Curve" tonight, and HOO BOY, my blood pressure is juuuust starting to come down. I am so, so fun, you guys.)

3.) DECLUTTERING: I am, for the most part, a purger, while my husband is a total pack rat. However, we're selling this house and moving come spring, so I am totally taking advantage of the HGTV seller mentality Mark has taken on and getting rid of All The Things. I am SO EXCITED. I'm making lists of projects and scheduling them on a calendar (PoAM, bitches!). This approach worked really well for us when we gutted and rebuilt the whole main floor of our house in 8 weeks, so I'm hoping we can stick with it.

4.) Healthy Sleep Habits: So without this whole thing turning into a dissertation on how being a lawyer has broken me (HA, TOO LATE), let's talk about how it robbed me of my ability to sleep. Back in the days when I resided at what I hope was (oh please, God) rock bottom, sleep was less than restful. I lived for the hours between when I left work and when I had to go to bed and start the process all over again. I developed RAGING insomnia, because if it's not bedtime, morning will never come, right? I would stay up way late, eventually passing out on the couch, snuggled with my laptop, whatever I was working on ending in, "ggbnnmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm." And those were the good nights; when I actually went to bed, I would have fitful stress dreams until waking in a heart racing panic at 4 am from which I would relax enough to fall asleep only minutes before the alarm went off. Not surprisingly, a year of this can really screw with your ability to sleep. I no longer experience frettin' hour (thank GOD), but I still have a terrible habit of staying up way too late (hello, fellow insomniacs!) and passing out on the couch. Obviously this is a terrible idea, what with the rising at 6 am, so this is really up there on my list of things I'd like to do better. Um, starting tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow.

5.) Food Management: I used to cook all the time, but over the last six months of a very weird work schedule at the store, I kind of got out of the habit. Now, though, I work close to my favorite grocery store, so it's easy to stop in one night per week on my way home and pick up the week's supplies. This is made way more effective by meal planning; I put the week's meals into a google calendar, then I use the grocery store's app to plug a shopping list (sorted by store aisle! what up, Wegmans!) into my phone. At home, I have been making coffee and a breakfast sandwich to take to work in the morning, and with my meal planning calendar, dinner is easy to throw together after work. The one hole in my plan at the moment is lunch, but the plan is to start making a big pot of soup on Sundays and taking it for lunch all week. I think that's relatively feasible, but we'll see how it all shakes out when we gut the master bath in a couple of weeks and everything falls to crap.

So that's it -- this is as close to resolutions as I get. Bet you're all enthralled by my incredibly original intentions to improve my eating, sleeping, cleaning, time management, and career, no? At least I didn't say exercise!