New Year Resolutions

New planners, lists, goals and dreams.... January 1st just might be my favorite holiday.  Next year promises to be exciting (new baby!) and challenging (new baby!). Normally I come up with a list of very specific goals I'd like to accomplish.  Not so this year.

I do have a few reading goals and some ideas on living more healthfully, I'd really like to focus this upcoming year on improving my overall self in a very specific way.  Hence I am choosing to be corny and pick a word/concept/etc... to focus on.

2013 will be the year that I focus on PATIENCE.

If you get down to it, most of my character flaws stem from my being impatient.  Let's look at some examples of how I'm impatient and it negatively impacts my life:

1. Parenting:  I'm pretty patient with Atticus.  We seem to have very similar personalities (yes, I'm sensitive) and so I can intuitively tell what I need to do.  Hope is an entirely different issue.  She is so bright, vibrant, and vivacious.  Hope is an extrovert and is a self-professed silly person.  90% of the time my frustration with Hope is unfounded.  I'll be cooking dinner and asking her to do something and she is singing loudly and pirouetting around the kitchen and I lose it.  I scream and yell and this isn't good.  Especially when Atticus now asks me "why Hope a pain in butt?"  Does she need to stop and listen and be respectful? Absolutely.  Can I accomplish that without looking like a missing scene from Mommy Dearest?  Absolutely.
2. Marriage:  I am a planner.  Sam is not.  I tend to want to plan and schedule everything waaaayyyy ahead of time because it needs to be done.  Sam will wait until the last minute.  Sometimes my way is best (like when budgeting or paying bills) and sometimes Sam's way is best (like deciding how to spend our free time).  Because I am impatient I end up doing things like this: "Hey... I know it is 8am and you just woke up, but I need to plan my day.  Are we going to watch Batman this evening? I was thinking around 8:30 after Atticus goes to bed.  If we take turns getting showers after dinner instead of waiting until the kids are in bed then we will finish the movie just before 11. Then we can maybe have sex as long as we can be asleep before midnight because we haven't decided what time we are waking up to clean house the next day.  Hey... hey... are you listening?"  Really really REALLY annoying.  
3. Weight loss and health:  I'm too impatient to appreciate the slow, steady healthy loss. I want all the weight gone NOW.  This means that if I don't see immediate results I pitch a fit, give in, and hit up the Dunkin Doughnuts. 
4. Reading and other hobbies:  Knitting a project to completion takes so much TIME.  Reading slowly and absorbing the text also takes time.  Phooey.  My free time is so limited and I really want to be able to zip through my hobbies so I can get to the next task.  That's no way to enjoy life.

The crux of my problem is that this entire time I've thought that I had a problem with perfectionism.  Maybe I do have a problem with wanting to be perfect, but it is the conjoined twin of impatience.  I want to be perfect RIGHT NOW.  Nope.  It just isn't going to happen.

I'll be writing on this occasionally and I have an eye out for quotes, poems, and the such that talk about patience.  Sayings with depth.  Not like those scripty wall decals that say things like "Live, Laugh, Love."  Truly thoughtful things to muse on as I try my best to learn patience.  I'm already off to a good start, I haven't even figured out a goal date form completing "learning patience." Instead, I'm going to -- well -- be patient.