Resolute.

I've never been a big New Year's resolution-maker.  When I was young I could never think of anything, and then when I went to uni I declared stupid things that didn't really apply to me -- to quit smoking, even though I've never smoked, to eat less pork, even though I was a vegetarian, and other hilarious (to me) pledges.  Last year I decided to be a bit realistic, but also to set resolutions for things that I genuinely wanted to do.  So my resolutions last year were to avoid plastic whenever possible, practice sleeping in, and learn to make gnocchi.  I did manage a few sleep-ins, though my day still typically starts before 7am on its own.  I haven't cut plastic out of my life, by any means, but I think I have cut down on plastic-purchases.  And by the middle of last year I had learnt the art of gnocchi. 

Before I move on to this year's resolutions, I thought it was worth a quick review of 2010 - it has been a big year in the Tropical Vegan house.

• I submitted my PhD
• Andy and I got married (posts here, here, here, and honeymoon posts here and here)
• We spent a long weekend in Sydney for a wedding and ate so much food (posts here, here, here, here, here, and here)
• I took a pottery class, which was fun and a totally legitimate form of playing in the mud
• I started teaching, and found myself with a crazy-busy second semester - for one six week period I found myself teaching 4 classes, across 5 separate disciplines
• We got a soymilk maker, and started saving HEAPS on Andy's soymilk habit.  And we started getting a little creative with the leftovers from soymilking, okara
• I started keeping track of my cycling kilometres and got up to 500 kms from April to August.  In August I decided that I would repeat my 500 kms, but within 3 months.  I never posted about the second challenge, but I did end up meeting my goal, but I fell short of my time limit by one day.  I decided to give myself an extension, though, because...
• I got appendicitis, which pretty much sucked
• Andy and I went to PNG, which was loads of fun (posts here, here, here and here)

Whew, so it was kind of a crazy-cakes year.  I made a few silly mistakes, particularly in the second semester, in terms of not taking very good care of myself and as a result I was mildly sick for weeks on end, and just altogether run-down.  So my main resolutions for 2011 are related to self-maintenance!

Nacho spent 2010 being cute (and mean, but that's just how she is)

First, I will start every morning with a few sun salutations (at least, more yoga if I'm feeling energetic), followed by a round of dry brushing.  This was something I had started to do in about August this year, but then I got sick, and busy, and never got round to picking it back up again.  But since mid-December I have begun again, and I'm happy I have.  Some sources suggest dry brushing is good for your immune system, and that it may reduce/prevent cellulite.  Even if those claims aren't true, it's a cheap and effective way to exfoliate without fancy scrubs and potions, and it makes my skin really soft and clear, so I'm going to keep this up all year.

Second, Andy and I would really like to buy a house soon-ish (2012 maybe?), and we are planning a trip to the US to visit my family in mid-2011, so we need to do some serious saving.  Now that I have a part-time, but permanent job(!!!), this will be a bit easier.  But, my second resolution is to not buy anything new, aside from consumables (food, shampoo, etc).  This is something I've been mulling over since reading about textual bulldog's shopping diet (I can't seem to access her blog to link right now, oh no!  I loved reading it, so I hope she comes back!), but avoided committing to because I was so uncertain about potential moves for jobs which would have necessitated some purchases.  Now that I have some certainty, I am going to attempt this one - I'll still buy secondhand clothes, but appliances and things will have a 30 day waiting period before purchasing, to decide if we really want/need the thing.  That way, I suspect, we will avoid the purchase of several things.  This won't be too hard anyways, because we are fairly indecisive about purchases, and don't buy much stuff to begin with.

So that's what I hope to be up to for 2011.  What are your resolutions?  Was 2010 a good year, or are you happy to see the end of it?