I won’t call these resolutions or goals, but I’m planning a few good habits I want to cultivate at the start of the new year. All of these fall under the umbrella of reclaiming some of my sanity and personality. Since having Edith, I am always sleep-deprived and therefore a little crazed, and I’ve realised that my usual strategies for refreshment all rely on being alone, something which I almost never am. So my inner life feels sour. I simply want to take small steps to help myself rest better and feel more like myself.

Use Edith’s nap times for rest and whatever feeds my soul.
Edith currently takes three naps a day, usually no longer than 30 minutes each. I’ve toyed with trying to use nap times for housework, but half an hour flies by when you aren’t having fun. Since I can do housework while she’s awake anyway, I’ve decided that it’s better to use her naps for rest. More specifically, I want to use her naps for whatever feeds my soul.

I need to be honest with myself about what does feed my soul. Since my time is now so fragmented, I have a hard time settling in to the activities I enjoy, like reading or knitting, because I never feel able to accomplish anything. But this has led to a bad habit of killing time by watching YouTube videos, doing petty research for something I might buy, or even pottering around the house halfway-doing little jobs. I do this under the auspices of ‘me-time’ but it truthfully doesn’t refresh me. What does feed my soul is reading, writing, having a cup of coffee, or doing some brief purposeful tidying to create a pleasant space.

Do a daily Bible reading.
Last year I was pretty successful in following a daily reading plan which went through the New Testament. The same plan has Old Testament readings, so this year I plan to follow them.

Do yoga twice a week.
Poor sleep and hours of breastfeeding leave me with headaches and neck and shoulder pain. This is something I have suffered with, off and on, for years, exacerbated for a while by graduate school. I actually felt my best in this regard when I was pregnant, because I did yoga three times a week, which not only helped with pregnancy-related pains but eradicated all the neck trouble I’d had for years. So I want to start doing some basic routines, at home, to help my current aches. Edith actually seems to enjoy watching me do yoga, so perhaps it will also be one of those activities that entertains her and me at the same time.

Do you have any good habits planned for 2016?