So it is now 2019 and everyone is resolving to do better at whatever it is they’re trying to do better at, myself included. This post contains affiliate links. Maybe you’ll find some of this useful.

So things I am trying to do better at:

1: My Health & Food

After talking with my doctor last year about my miserable menstrual-cycle-related breast pain and truly awful PMS, she told me my options were 1) hormonal birth control, which may or may not help with the symptoms; or 2) more pain medication as needed, which didn’t really help because the pain often resolved before I got around to taking any.

I was not pleased with either option and after some searching online, I came across Period Repair Manual, by Lara Briden ND, who advocates a removing dairy, wheat, gluten, (and a few other things) from your diet to cut back on inflammation, which in turn helps issues with the reproductive cycle. She also recommended dietary supplements to help provide extra vitamins and minerals not always acquired through food alone.

I am not ready to cut out all dairy, wheat, gluten, and a number of other things, but so far, well into the second cycle, regularly taking a multi-vitamin seems to be working. I’ve been diligently tracking things with Clue (not an affiliate link, just an amazing app) and so far a simple multi-vitamin has made a tremendous difference in my levels of breast pain.

In an ideal world I would be getting all the vitamins and minerals I need from the food I eat, and I’d be eating three healthy responsibly portioned meals a day, with the occasional equally healthy snack, but that isn’t always the case. I fall woefully short when it comes to meal planning, and I’ve been trying to find reasonable solutions to help.

I just learned about Mealime (not an affiliate link) and have decided to try it for two or three meals a week, I’ll let you know how that goes. Between some meal plans to work with and our every-other-weekly veggie box delivery from our CSA (community supported ag) I’m hoping to improve the quality of dinner around here so it isn’t ordering takeout pizza again. I’ll try and remember to update how this is going in a month or two. I’m currently using the free settings.

2. Blogging

I’m hoping to do a bit more blogging here this year. Maybe even once a month. Maybe I’ll even finish my series of Steiner lectures that I started in 2016 2015, maybe not, lets not get ahead of ourselves.

3. Organization around the house & with the children

This is an on-going issue. I tried bullet journals, but they were always too big, bulky, and complicated feeling. I’ve been using Field Notes (I’m partial to the graph paper) to help keep track of things, grocery lists, important dates, to-do lists. They’re great, they’re about the same size as my cell phone and fit easily in a pocket or my purse. Things either get immediately entered onto my google calendar, or they’re written down in my little notebook. When one fills up, I flip through for any important (or still relevant) information to move into the next one, or save that information somewhere more permanent.

In addition to keeping track of All The Things, there is the stuff that goes with it. I’m hoping have regular trips to the a local donation center, frequent posts on Nextdoor for sale/free items, and maybe even a few trips to the local dump. Not quite KonMari tidy, but I need to start somewhere.

These are my Big 3 Things to work on for the year. I will probably also set monthly and weekly goals, as well as to-do lists for the never-ending list of things that need to get done around the house. I hope everyone has a fairly decent 2019. What are your Big 3 Things you’d like to improve in 2019?

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