A New Chance for Good Habits

I long ago realized that it was pointless for me to make new year's resolutions, both because they're so easily broken and because the start of the new year, like any measure of time, is largely arbitrary. Over the past decade or so, I've had more luck with building good habits, and while that practice can start any time, sometimes an artificial marker like starting a new calendar year can feel like as good a time as any to look at the habits I've been building and make adjustments. So for this Three on Thursday, I'm linking up with Carole and friends to look at strengthening some habits I've made and working on a new one.

1. Getting in my 10,000 steps every day
Much like the start of the new year, the 10K milestone is someone arbitrary. My goal is to keep my body moving and to aim for at least 10,000 steps a day, as measured by my Fitbit. When the pandemic started and we were all staying at home, I found that I not only looked forward to getting out to exercise every day (because it was my one chance to leave the house) but that the daily physical activity did a huge amount toward relieving my stress and anxiety. I have tried to get out for a walk or a run every day, with working from home giving me more flexibility because I'm not running to and from work and home and school. I can take my "lunch break" whenever I want, as long as I'm around for my twice-weekly team meetings, and that's been enabling me to keep this practice up. Over the last 10 months or so, there have certainly been days I didn't hit the mark because I was feeling under the weather or had hurt something, but in 2020 I averaged 13,622 steps daily, and as of yesterday, I'm on a 107-day streak of 10,000 steps per day or more. What matters to me more than those numbers is how I feel, which is less stressed, stronger, and less anxious. This is a habit I want to make permanent if I can, so when things return to "normal," I will have to examine my schedule and figure out where to fit it in.

2. Daily journaling
Another practice I started near the start of the pandemic was a (nearly) daily reflection in my journal. I missed a few days in the first several months, but now I've gotten into the swing of things and it's become a cherished daily habit. I recently made a slight change to this habit that's made it an easier one to keep going. I know many of you start out your day with your journal, but for me it works best to do my daily entry at night so I can reflect on the day that just was. For much of last year I was doing this right before bed, and often I felt like I needed to do it quickly so I could get as much time as possible to read before turning in for the night. But I've now started writing a bit earlier in the evening, and that's given me more time to write and really reflect. Rainbow also enjoys reading before bed, and lately she's been bringing her book into our room so she can hang out with us. That means I can't turn on the TV yet, so I figured it would be the perfect time to pull out the journal. It is working really well, and I can't believe I didn't think of doing it months ago.

3. Charity knitting
You may remember that one of my 21 in 2021 items is to knit at least five items for charity, and in general I want to make it a habit this year to regularly knit items to donate. The sisterhood of my synagogue has been collecting hats, scarves, mittens, gloves, socks, etc., so now I have a place I can donate and no excuse for not doing it. I've got a little pile of items all ready to go:

I knit the two hats on the left a couple of years ago, and they've just been sitting in my stash. Then there are two pairs of socks I knit for Rainbow that she's outgrown, and they hardly look like they've been warm and are both very sturdy. Finally there's the hat and mittens set I knit last month. After last month's stash reorganization, I have a ton of partial skeins that will be perfect for hats and mittens, plus I have a big bag of sock yarn scraps that would make fun scrappy socks, so using those up for charity items will both be doing a good deed and helping to clear out some space in my stash.

Finally, although this isn't so much a new habit as a bit of a new tradition, I've been trying to make myself a cup of tea to end the day during the week. By the time I pick Rainbow up from school, get her settled with a snack, and clean out her lunch stuff, it's usually around 3:30, so I make a cup of tea that is usually cooled off enough to sip through the last hour of the workday. I have always been a tea drinker, but as I've been able to stomach coffee again, I've been drinking less. Since we've been home, however, I've been drinking more as a kind of treat. I've ordered several varieties of loose tea from Plum Deluxe, both black/caffeinated and herbal, and I have several infusers I use. I even cleaned out a shelf of my spice cabinet so that it's now almost totally devoted to teas! My current favorite is Spice of Life Hot Cinnamon Spice -- it's the perfect warming thing to sip on a damp, cold day. If you'd like to give it or any of their teas a try, I can offer you this referral code: REFZMJXKFEWFA (full disclosure: I get free tea if you order a certain amount -- but feel free not to use it; I think their teas are wonderful and would recommend them even if I didn't get anything from referring you!).