Summer Resolutions

Most people, if they make resolutions at all, make them for New Year's.  I can't handle that, because my life is bananas (B-A-N-A-N-A-S!) in January due to work.  Also, it's cold and miserable in January and when I'm home, all I want to do is curl up in a ball under a blankie, drink (sugar-free, hopefully) hot chocolate, and watch kiddie tv with CJ.  

However...there are some new habits I would like to acquire.  I have found, from my personal experience over the past 6 years, that the best time for the acquiring of new habits is in the summer, because work has chilled out (even CAMP!  With middle-schoolers! Is not as stressful as the insanity that is my travel schedule during the school year!  And that is sad!) and it is warm enough outside to go do pleasant and vaguely healthful things without toting along my blankie, Linus-style.  Also, my basement goes from freezing bat-cave to the most pleasant and temperate place in the house, which doubles the amount of space I've got to work with.  

So my summer resolutions are as follows:

*Quit buying so much clothing.  I'm like, drowning in it over here.  In March I bought a J Crew Jackie cardigan in a color that I already had (by accident, duh) and had to make a special trip just to return it, a high moment in my own personal "waste-of-time-and-energy-Olympics".  I'm kicking this off with "Shop-Your-Closet-May"--as in, no buying new clothes/accessories/etc in the month of May. 

*Figure out a strategy for managing stress.  The last time I got a massage the masseuse told me that my stress was going to start having physical consequences pretty soon.  Like, for example, the fact that I am beginning to have trouble raising my arms over my head because of how insanely tight my shoulders are.  I feel like the answer to this problem probably involves yoga, relaxing hobbies, and a more soothing environment--which brings us to...

*Clean and organize my house.  This is a perennial resolution but I keep putting it on the list because I really feel like if the house didn't look like a tornado had just hit it I would probably be a little more chill.  The problem is that my vague OCDish tendencies actually make it hard to be around clutter even to clean it...it upsets me so much that I just go into hiding and try to get away from it or just ignore it.  

*Eat better.  I had a ton of success with the South Beach Diet like a year ago and now I'm kind of falling off the wagon, but I know I would feel a lot better and have a lot more energy if I wasn't eating so much refined sugar and starches.  Which would probably help me organize my house and manage my stress.  

*Be nicer to myself.  These things all bother me so much that I beat myself up over it.  Total waste of energy--better strat would be to tell myself how AMAZING(!!!) I am while cleaning/organizing/yogaing/cooking.

So those are my resolutions.  Does anybody else make summer resolutions instead of winter ones?  Did I inspire you...or would you like to drop me a little inspiration?  A little birdie tells me that Tara Stiles has some great yoga mini-workouts on youtube so I may head over there to stretch out my poor shoulders for a while.