So, it's the last day of January and I thought I should check in on my resolution and monthly habit.

For Fly Lady the monthly habit for January was shine your sink. It honestly took me all month to get this habit. I know it's the first on the baby steps and should be habit by now already, but it's a struggle for me. The clincher on this habit was, believe it or not, my cat. My very over weight cat (whom I have on a "diet") has taken to scavenging the kitchen sink for food. I have seen her take out a garbanzo bean that escaped the can when I was rinsing and eat it. I have also seen her grab a piece of broccoli husk and gnaw on it until she realized it was a vegetable and had no protein. My habit used to be to keep dirty dishes in the sink until I felt I had the time to do them, but no more. She doesn't need to be eating anything else, much less people food from the dirty dishes (yuck!) . So there is a new sign above my kitchen instead of "Shine your sink" it says "NO dirty dishes in the sink."

My resolution for January was losing weight. Basically this meant through exercise and laying off all the sweets and pastries I had grown accustomed to eating over the holidays. At first I tried doing a 2 days exercise, one day rest routine. This didn't end up working out once my Winter schedule was in place. I knew that I would always be unable to exercise on Tuesdays, but I'd need to with the 2-1 rotation. So, for about one week I was a little lax about my exercise and eating. But then I was reminded that I have a beach wedding to go to this summer. Now my routine is 5 days a week, 3 days are double workouts with 2 short workouts, and the weekend I do longer workouts. And I never have more than 1 day rest in a row. So far that is working out far better than the other. I manged to lose 2 pounds so far. At that rate I will definitely hit my goal before the wedding.

So the New Year is in full swing. The new Winter Semester just started and it's the perfect time to get back on the Fly Lady bandwagon with my New Year's Resolutions.

I recently found and fell in love with the Unclutterer blog. For new years resolutions the blog author created 2 resolutions for each month (one clutter related for her blog, one personal). I really liked the idea. There's no pressure to keep a resolution all year, just for 1 month. And if it sticks that's a bonus. Since my blog is personal, and since I can't think of 24 resolutions, I decided I would just do 12. I also broke up many of them into smaller weekly goals to help me work on the resolution.

January is an exercise/lose weight resolution. I gained alot over the holidays and stopped routinely exercising some time last fall. So that is what is my #1 priority and thus January's resolution. In the mean time I did clean up my house this past weekend and I hung some of the art work I received for Christmas which is a great incentive to keep things neat and tidy. I've also tried to visit Big Tent on a regular basis.

Getting my home back under control is on my list of resolutions, but unfortunately since my health comes first, exercise and food are the first two resolutions being worked on. I don't want to overload myself with so many "have to" resolutions that I burn out. So right now, I'm doing what I can when I can on other things. And sticking to my January resolutions:

January Resolutions:
Week 1 - work out 2 days, rest 1
Week 2 - week 1 plus begin counting calories (I use My Fitness Pal on my android phone)
Week 3 - weeks 1 & 2 plus set reasonable calorie guidelines and stick to it
Week 4 - weeks 2 & 3 and begin working out 3 days, rest 1