Galapagos Sea Lions Resting

Originally uploaded by fiznatty

As part of my year-long theme of nurturing calm, I hope to come up with a few practical ways to “live the theme” each month. Since I only have 11 weeks (eek!) before the baby comes, I’m only going to plan through March, and see how things go after that.

For me, a big part of staying calm is having enough energy to deal with the tasks at hand. So, I am going to spend January focusing on feeling energized and making sure I get enough rest – specifically:

1. Going to sleep by 10:30pm (if I have somewhere to be the next morning). If I stay up late, I inevitably abuse the snooze button in the morning, which means I’m late to work and the whole day is off to a bad start.

2. Doing some type of physical activity 3-4 times per week. Exercise really energizes me… I just have to remind myself of that when I’m debating between staying home or heading back out in the cold to go to the gym!

3. Spending 15 minutes per day decluttering. We’ve got a new person moving into the house soon – we need to make room for him! Decluttering is not necessarily an energizing activity for me, but clutter is very draining, so I am actually really excited about making some progress in this regard.

Looking forward, I hope to spend February focusing on relationships (marriage, family, friendships) and March on preparation (aka CRUNCH TIME).  I’ll flesh these out with some specific goals later on, after I see how this first month goes.