The List

1. Making my bed every day. I know I already do this, but it means that I'm guaranteed to succeed in at least one area...

2. Blogging. Daily. Yeah, I know. Another freebie.

3. Takeaway crackdown. Somewhere in the five years since I became a mum, my attitude towards fast food (especially those Golden Arches) has changed from *sign of the horns to ward off evil* to "Have a burger/chips/nuggets/Coke/whatever you want - and STOP WHINGING!" It has just gotten waaaay too easy to plonk a Happy Meal down rather than co-ordinate the intricate ballet that is a meal at home. It doesn't help that I'm often time poor, half starved and I could swear that Big Macs call to my blood like the full moon to a mad dog. But - from now on: an absolute maximum of (one) takeaway meal a week. Less drive-thru, more think thru! Oh, and sushi doesn't count. ;)

4. About that sushi... Okay, I know it's healthier, but dang it, in the week since Bathurst's only sushi place opened, I've developed a fifty dollar a week nori habit and it's gotta go. Maximum of (two) nori rolls per visit... okay, per day. This one will be harder than it looks.

5. Feed the dog. Proper dog food. Leftover kid breakfasts don't count.

6. Stop buying Black Milk. I'm squealing in pain at the very thought of this. In case you don't also feel pain, you better check out <<Black Milk Clothing>>

7. Brush teeth - twice daily. You would think, after spending nearly thirteen hundred bucks on dental bills last year, that oral hygiene would be high on the agenda for me. Sadly, I have no backbone and when I'm in my jammies feeling sleepy, I tend to just go 'bugger it, do it in the morning'. Don't even start on me about flossing - it's unnatural and creepy and I won't do it.

8. Wash make-up off before bed. Do not even try to tell me that everyone does this all the time, *looks at the girls*. But yeah, lately I'm worse than most. I'm like the before picture from the Pro-Activ ad. If I can stick this one, I'm going to treat myself to a sixty day supply of Pro-Activ (that's if I still need it after washing my face every night.)

9. Not checking Facebook at work. Ouch.

10. Getting up with the daisies. Out of bed, both feet, by 6.30am at the LATEST! Bonus points for earlier.

11. Going to bed sensibly. Falling into a stupor in front of the telly at 9pm doesn't count.

12. Water the plants every day. If there was like, a DOCS equivalent for plant abuse/neglect, I would have had all my plants removed from me and placed in care several times over. As it is, they all died. Except one, and I haven't had it for very long.

13. Use that flipping gym membership - three times a week min. Self explanatory.

14. Return missed calls / text messages. I am so notoriously slack at this, that if I had to place a bet on what people talk about me behind my back about, this would be it. At least, I hope this would be it. I'm scared of what the real answer may be. If you know, can you tell me and I will add it to my habit changing list.

15. Stop talking about people behind their back. You guilted me into it.

16. Read Bible each day. This will be roughly my thousandth attempt at this habit, but you gotta keep trying, eh? I've whittled the margin down to about once a week already...

17. Taking my tablet. Flipping hopeless at this. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've run out of them.

18. Hanging washing outside to dry. All my environmental idealism has failed in the face of the ultimate convenience of the clothes dryer.

19. Drinking more water. Prompted by discussion in my online mums group, during which I audibly heard my kidneys bitching to each other about me. One litre a day I think is an admirable (and achievable) goal.

20. Planning the night before. This is all those little things I should do in advance that instead get done on the fly - things like Finn's homework, finding a babysitter, and remembering important engagements instead of faking that I had them in mind all along...

21. No chocolate bingeing. Including but not limited to: eating Nutella off a spoon, scooping more Milo into the cup than is really necessary to flavour the milk, and then hiding it under the milk, eating more than four pieces of chocolate in a sitting. Standing up then sitting down again does not count as a new 'sitting'.

22. Pelvic floor exercises. I just put this one in to embarrass the blokes.

23. Pay off the credit card. We actually had this done, then through sloppy spending it's crept back out there again, so I'm going to be proactive and sell stuff until it's gone gone gone. Car, anyone?

24. Quit hoarding. I'm not quite up there with that Bondi lady, but just ask any one of the (countless thousands of) people who have helped us move house... I keep so much crap. I keep birthday cards, old phone bills, bits of rock from my uni days, books I have never and will never read. This is a double challenge, in that it involves not allowing incoming crap, and throwing out/ moving on some of the current excess. Subnote: returning other people's belongings within a reasonable time frame.

25. Maximum of one sugar in cups of tea/coffee. Feel the burrrrrn - but being pre-diabetic it's possibly an issue of life expectancy ;)

26. Stomach crunches, thirty-six, daily. Harvey may be a toddler now but he could dead-set still get back in the pouch if he wanted to - it's still there. The gut must be brought into line.

27. No picking spots. Oh, stop carrying on. As if you haven't got a gross habit or three.

28. Grocery shopping with a list only. Isn't it freaking amazing how you can wander around the shop, pick up a few 'essentials' and before you know it you've spent eighty bucks on who-knows-what and there's still no toilet paper nor anything to eat in the pantry?

29. Write to the sponsor kids. I am straight up ashamed of how little love I show these little guys. From now on, every time I get a letter, they get a (proper) reply.

30. Mystery List Item. It's a secret. But I'm working on it, I promise ;)

M xx