New Year

It's the beginning of summer and I get to do something I've done for the past 4 years at this time- start over. Since I have a teaching career I am able to start a new year every June and what's more, every August as well. If all this sounds a little too Pollyanna-esque to you, I promise that it's not.

Remember when you were a kid and (unless you were subjected to the trauma of year-round school) you got summer break? Remember that feeling that you could do anything you wanted? That's how I feel at the end of each school year, but with a few differences. For instance, as a child I looked forward to finding new insects in the summers and keeping them alive for longer than last summer. Now I look forward finding new places to buy farm eggs or a different way to clean something.

Each year I get the opportunity to create new habits. I much prefer this to breaking old habits- too difficult! Research shows that creating a new habit is more likely to stick than simply trying to break an old habit. Okay, I'm not sure if "research shows" this but I know my demographic here and we're all research junkies so I figure you'll pay more attention if I start the sentence this way. It's true though- when you want to change your diet it works much better to say "I'm going to eat more vegetables" than "I'm going to eat less candy." When you focus on getting the veggies, your candy-mania lessens and you're able to achieve your overall goal of healthier eating.

Since I'm not working, or at least not working typical hours out of the house, I can really focus on stuff I want to start or change. Another thing I've learned is not to make a huge list of things to accomplish over the summer. After all, it's only a little under 3 months and you want to really do things that you can sustain instead of packing in as much as possible. Last year I got really into making salad dressings- important since I eat crazy amounts of salad. We're talking somewhere between that huge pile you see the enormous turtles eating at the zoo and full-on raw vegan. That habit was a small step in the direction of really eating whole, minimally processed foods. If I'd tried to make 3 dressings a week during the school year? Not a chance.

This summer I'm focusing on a few things, some of which are a little gross. The first involves flossing. I wasn't aware of what flossing was until I was in high school (GROSS right) and my immediate family members were never big flossers, so it wasn't really something I did growing up. Oh, I'd give it a shot a few times a week through college and after but I've never been an everyday flosser, or as doctors would call it "someone who actually takes care of their teeth." So every night before bed, it gets floss-tastic around here. After three months of this I'm confident it will come naturally and I'll prevent myself from pirate teeth at the age of 40.

I really enjoy this time of my year because I get the chance to focus on the person I want to be, whether it be big things like being more connected with those I'm around or smaller things like flossing daily. I know this is something not everyone gets to do, so I take responsibility to for using this opportunity to my best ability. That's not to say I don't also lay around reading romantic vampire literature or doing Google searches for things like "trampoline injuries." I certainly enjoy my break to the fullest, I just try to also make some positive changes during this summer new year.

Here are some summer rabbits! Please enjoy my high quality photograph.