A fresh start

A little while ago I had a moment (or rather, a few days worth of moments) of awakening. It happens to us all from time to time, but I realized that I had gotten myself stuck in a rut. A bad one. I was not taking care of myself, I was a big ball of stress, and I was not enjoying my (pretty blessed) life in the way I should be. I started talking to Billy about it, and he had noticed (of course) and wanted to do whatever he could to help. And since then, I've gone through a couple of weeks of reflection. I've thought about what I need to change, what steps I must take to make the changes, and how I can get myself back on track.

So, in the spirit of my list-obsession, and my adoration for New year's Resolutions, I'm making a mid-year resolution list. I know people hate resolutions, but I LOVE THEM. Like more than a friend. Granted, all of my resolution lists look pretty much the same, I still think it's really important to be aware of your own issues and try to change them....even if you only change them until you make your next list.

So, here is my newest version. It's going to take time to get everything going, but I'm already well on my way, and I feel SO MUCH BETTER.

1. Take better care of myself. Take long baths, spend a little time each night before reading, do the things that I love to do (that I haven't made any time for since becoming a Mom).
2. Take care of my health. Stress is an ongoing issue for me, I have pretty bad anxiety, and it's essential that I take care of myself to keep this in check. I've actually started running again (which I haven't done since before I was pregnant) and I'm already feeling better. I forgot how therapeutic running is for me.
3. Work on my time management. Every Mom complains about balance and I know I'll never sit and say to myself "there we go, it's all perfectly balanced" but I do need to work on breaking up my time so that I'm devoting time to being a Mom, a business owner, etc. 
4. Simplify. This is vague, and that's because I mean simplify EVERYTHING. Things in my closet, things in my life...everything. For example, we're going to get rid of the house phone, because it's stupid to have. We're going to get rid of extra 'stuff' (read - declutter) but also extra time wasters, extra pressures, processes that are redundant in terms of my shop...you get the idea.
5. Spend less time 'connected'. My biggest social media love is now Instagram, but I've backed off Twitter and Facebook and will stay that way. I've even taken off notifications, so I have to go out of my way to log in to FB to see what's going on. I feel like I can't keep up with it, and if I try, then I'm missing out on too many other things that are way more important. I do love Twitter, but I just can't check it all the time...I do now and then and I'm ok with that. As for FB, it has become so overcomplicated, it kind of takes the fun out of it. And it's the last thing I check in on nowdays. I'll make a point of staying connected with blogging pals through comments/twitter, etc. here and there. And, for the most part, my friends and I keep in touch through texts/emails anyway. Oh, and you know, the whole 'in person' method. 
6. Learn to be a better Mom. I feel like I am the last one to know everything when it comes to motherhood, and the truth is that I have not gone out of my way to stay on top of things. I'm going to look for good sources (because the information out there is so overwhelming, I need to narrow it down) and make it a point of staying in the loop on different stages, development things, etc. While I think my method of 'just see what happens' has it's perks, I need to find a happy medium. Side note, any Mom's out there have any good recommendations on websites/books they depend on? I feel like BabyCenter is pretty good, mixed with Dr. Sears. Any others?
7. Stop pre-planning every second of my life. Here's how bad it's gotten. If I know Ben is going to have a nap soon (well, fingers crossed anyway) I will start to think about what needs to get done, and I get panicky thinking about how much I want to squeeze into this tiny portion of time. Like, I'm crazy. It needs to stop.
8. Have fun. Plan fun things with Billy, go for walks, get outside, that sort of thing. I feel like over the past few weeks Billy and I have been doing this more than usual and I have been loving every minute of it. I just want to soak in every last minute of summer!

How about you guys, anyone feeling like they're in a rut these days? Any tips on what I should work in to my list? 

(Billy took that picture if us the other night while we were on a dinner picnic. LOVE it.)