Irresolved.

[Drafter's Note: Crazy kudos to my equal parts beautiful & inspiring sister-coz Jenny, as she has been blogging nearly daily, in and around mothering three children under 4. She is a rockstar. I--caretaker of one cat--am pathetic by any measure of comparison. Ah, well...]

I have, mayhap, mentioned my sheer loathing mild distaste for New Year's resolutions. And I have, also mayhap, mentioned how I inevitably end up making them, against my idealistic will (and sometimes completely ignorantly--see the last time I signed up for Planet Fitness, having received a special offer in the mail... on January 2...). 

But this year, I've determined to just embrace it. Yes, as I've mentioned before, August 22 is just as good a Day for Change as January 1, but that doesn't mean there's something wrong with a new year bringing on new changes. Sometimes, you just have to suck it up and embrace the cliche. 

So, a few resolutions--and true to form, these aren't glib promises, but pieces of processes. Hopefully that means they'll see me past January 20...

- Getting Better at Getting Fit. My beautiful friend Anna suggested we start going to the gym together back in October, and that was an awesome plan--accountability is a gorgeous thing. We (somewhat predictably) slacked a bit in the last couple weeks between bad weather, holiday/family schedules, aaaaaand occasional "OR we could come back to my house and watch Anchorman...?", but we have jump-started our plan... with a kick. In an effort to A) avoid the resolutionaries who will be slamming PF after work and B) nip excuses in the bud, we're going before work now--which meant a 4:50 alarm this morning. But it also meant starting my day chatting with Anna, getting the body cranked up and going, and cracking up to Mark Driscoll comparing Xerxes to Charlie Sheen. With an increasing bend toward negativity elsewhere in life, this is exactly what I need--the physical exercise is practically a side effect. Practically.

- Writing, Since I'm, Ya Know, a Writer. Between SOLC, 5MF, and a any given Google search for "writing prompts," it's a little ridiculous that I'm averaging a singular blog post a month these days. (This is where I assure you that I write elsewhere and not just here. Umm, yes, but not enough to make the argument stick.) So this is The Thing I'm Going to Start Doing, true resolution style: A thousand words a week--actual writing, sitting down and letting words work. A pittance to any real writer, but a place to start. (Thanks to my awesome buddy Ruth for passing along the #nerdlution word count idea... Though I'm not cool enough to tweet & connect about same...)

- Seeking Out the Plan. God uses weird things to keep me in line, and recently it's been my Bible app on my phone. That baby comes out every morning, first thing, before my feet hit the floor, and come mid-July I'll have read every word in a year. (As opposed to the last effort for same, which took five...) But I've realized in the last couple weeks that in my efforts to blaze through my daily reading, I've neglected my daily time--prayer journaling, being still, waiting, listening. And, as usual, there are some pretty large decisions looming around in my life, and I keep trucking toward them rather than tapping the brakes. So without forsaking the reading, I'm making a renewed effort to tap into the plan--not anything that I'm going to figure out or narrow down, but the real plan: "For I know the plans I have for you,' says the Eternal, 'plans for peace, not evil, to give you a future and hope—never forget that. At that time, you will call out for Me, and I will hear. You will pray, and I will listen. You will look for Me intently, and you will find Me.'" (Jer. 29:11-13, The Voice translation).

So I am, to some degree, resolved. The part of me that grates against New Year's smiles a bit as I realize I cannot end with some pithy comment about Day One, because it's already January 2. 

Cliche, you have been foiled.