“I RESOLVE to work out more this year. To exercise regularly. To hit the gym at least three times a day. To cut down on soda. To eat more vegetables. To get my butt off the couch more. To be healthy. These I resolve to do in the new year.” Sounds familiar?

Better health habits always makes it into anyone’s list of resolutions for the new year. Bravo, yes! Everyone should strive to be more health-conscious. So we sign up for the gym, stock our pantry with healthy goods. It starts out well the first few weeks. Or days. And then it becomes harder. And then you feel yourself giving up, thinking of it as another resolution gone bad.

You can do it. Don’t despair! No pain, no gain, right? Here are three simple things you can carry on that happy, healthy attitude throughout the year:

1. Get a health buddy. Watching your health is more fun when you’ve got someone to share the experience with. Go to the gym together, watch out for each other when ordering at restaurants.
2. Start small. While thirty pounds in three months is achievable, do know how to go about it step-by-step. Get a trainer and get recommendations on how to ease into your ideal weight. Baby steps always help. Keep the grand plan in mind, but realize that you’ll get there with small steps too.
3. Think positive! You CAN do it. Your health is what you make it to be, always remember that.

Have a healthy, happy year!

HOURS before going into the New Year, my husband and I were gathering clutter around our home, throwing them into boxes. Over 2008, our little home had turned into a clutter magnet. There were magazines all over the living room, DVDs here and there, coasters scattered around the home, mineral water bottles in hidden corners, gaaah. We would always say we’d be too tired to clean during weekends. Towards the end of the year, we both screamed “WE’VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS!” and decided to throw out the clutter. Out with the old, in with the new.

We have to make room for new blessings, we reflected. How else could new things fit into our happy but cramped nest when we would almost always trip over odds and ends? And so we took out the boxes and decided to clean, right before Jan. 1, 2009 came in.

It took several hours but was very much worth it. The old toys are now for donation, other items for sharing, most of them went in the trash. Our home looked and felt like it could breathe again! And as we decluttered our home, we too felt the whole process was cleansing for ourselves too.

Have you done any New Year decluttering? While we did ours to ring in the year clutter-free, the challenge is to maintain our home being clutter-free. What guides us though is the thinking that if we crowd our home with junk, then no new blessings would come in. There’d just be no room for it! So we now try harder to maintain a clutter-free space. I think our living room just signed in relief.

Happy New Year everyone!