Resolutions

I don't usually make New Year's resolutions. However, this year, as I hurriedly scribbled out a pile of Christmas cards at some time after the last minute and thought back to all the Flylady e-mails I'd been getting for the past six weeks promising me that if I only followed Flylady's do-a-bit-at-a-time plan I could be ready comfortably in advance, I thought "That's it. Next year, I will actually do the whole Flylady Christmas thing and Cruise Comfortably Through The Holidays, as promised. In fact, I will make it my New Year's Resolution."

Thus inspired, I went ahead and made a few more.

2. To be a bit more assiduous about doing Flylady generally. I joined up on 24th August, and since then I've been a lacklustre maggot (I am not going to start describing myself as a Flybaby in writing on my own blog, so I'll go with 'maggot', which may mean the same thing but has much more character to it). I don't wear shoes in the house because being psychologically primed for maximum efficiency is less important to me than the longevity of my carpets and the comfort of my feet. When I first joined, I did the Super-Duper-Uber-Sink Shine to mark my official initiation into the Flylady Cult, but it's been pretty much an as-and-when thing since then. As has been the decluttering and the other things. It all depends on when I've got time, when I feel like it, and so on. Flylady would not be proud of me. (Which is not something that bothers me - I've still got a huge amount of decluttering done even with the bits and pieces of her regime that I've been doing, and that feels a bloody sight better than having a complete stranger be proud of me.)

What I mean by 'assiduous' here is something I had a bit of a hard time specifying to myself - to claim that I was going to stick perfectly to her system from now on would be both self-deceptive and ironic, considering how adamantly the Flycrew are against perfectionism. In practice, I know perfectly well that I'm still only going to be doing bits on an as-and-when basis according to when I have time and when I feel like it, so it was hard to see why I was bothering to put it on the list of resolutions at all. (I know that I'm defying all tradition by refusing to make any resolutions that I don't think I've got at least some remote chance of keeping, but that just isn't how I do things. You will, for example, observe the absence of any promises of reduced chocolate consumption from this list.)

Eventually, I realised that what I was after was the fresh start feeling that is the whole reason why we make New Year's Resolutions, instead of just, say, Random Wednesday Resolutions. Sure, I'll still only be doing Flylady on a when-I-feel-like-it basis. But, with the psychological boost of that seductive fresh start, I'll feel like it more often. Or so I can hope.

3. To do regular abdominal exercises. This is not because I am any longer harbouring the least illusion that I am ever going to look good in a bikini (even if I still believed my abdominal wall was ever going to be flat, there is still now the small matter of the stretch marks). It's slightly more complex than that.

In around about a year's time, Barry and I would like to start trying for Child The Second. I think we all know the chanciness of those sorts of plans. I'm very far from oblivious to the possibility that we won't even get far enough for this to be a worry, but... let's optimistically suppose that we're lucky enough to get that second line once more. I really, really won't want to announce that to the world until this hypothetical future fetus makes it through those first crucial three months, as confirmed by scan, and thus appears to have a reasonable probability of becoming an actual future child. There's many a slip 'twixt blastocyst and uterine wall, and all that. Maybe I'd feel differently if it came to the point - I know that a lot of people in such a situation find the sympathy of people around them is all that pulls them through. But it's a thought I've always found intensely off-putting. I really do feel that if I ever have a miscarriage, I will not really want to have to deal with everyone I speak to telling me how sorry they are.

So, I have strong feelings about not announcing pregnancies until over three months. However, my understanding from various anecdotal sources (Vicki Iovine and several of the people on the Internet pregnancy group I read) is that, in the case of second and subsequent pregnancies, your body tends not to allow you this option. Apparently, if you're pregnant for the second time, your belly will start appearing almost as soon as the second line does, because those abdominal muscles will be too weakened by being formerly stretched to accommodate a full-term baby.

So, if I want to keep this hypothetical hoped-for future pregnancy a secret, I've got around a year to be sure my stomach muscles are in a fit state to do it. And that, ladies and gentlebirds, is the reasoning behind that particular resolution.

4. To spend some time with my husband for a change. This is a much trickier one, because I have very limited time what with the job and the baby and everything and so I feared this resolution might actually involve me having to give up some of my Internet time. Fortunately, I have now surveyed my accounts and discovered that they look rosier than I'd expected (sorry - I know it's in very bad taste for me not only to post that but to do so straight after Christmas), and so it appears that I can afford a new laptop. This means that I'll be able to sit in the same room as him while doing my blogging, which will represent a quantum leap forward in social interaction. I do hope he appreciates these efforts on my part.

So, dear readers (a phrase I have wanted to use - it sounds so delightfully Miss Mannersish) - any good resolutions out there? C'mon, confess all. I promise I won't hold it against you on 31.12.06.