Turning Your New Year's Resolutions Into plans

It is that time of year when people decide what they want to get done in the coming year and call these goals, resolutions. While New Years Resolutions can be fun to choose, they don’t often stick. But the reason they fail isn’t because you can’t achieve them, but because they are often not thought out and don’t have a plan. It's easy to get distracted when you don't know exactly what you need to do!

When you make a plan for your new years resolutions, you have a much higher chance of success. Lets say my new year resolution is to lose weight. While we all know what that means, it's easy to get distracted a few weeks in by such a vague goal. If I had a definite plan, I would have a better chance of sticking to it.

Now lets say my resolution is to lose weight, BUT I have planned to lose 15 lbs. in 6 months by going to the gym 3 times a week, eating a salad every day and having fruit instead of sweets for dessert 5 days out of the week. Now that's a plan with structure that will be easier to stick to!

Do you need more self-care? Here are the signs...

Self care is one of those buzzwords that you hear a lot but it's not always clear exactly what it means. Let me decode it a bit. It's basically the art of knowing when to spend some extra time taking care of yourself. Unfortunately, if you don't enjoy it then it won't work. This can make it really difficult to find a self care routine and stick to it.

When you're not spending enough time on self care, it becomes self neglect. For a lot of people, it isn’t always easy to realize that they are experiencing the negative effects of self neglect. It can happen very easily to anyone when they have life elements like children, financial issues, feelings of inadequacy, or physical problems. 

The time and energy that these various obstacles take to handle in our daily lives can leech the energy of even the most resilient people. Fortunately, the mind and body have a way of alerting you to the fact that there’s some kind of deficiency. Here are some signs and symptoms to keep an eye on.

MYO Hand scrub (save yourself some money!)

I love to make my own bath and body care products for many reasons, the main reason being that I can control things like consistency or scent. I dig in the garden a lot and that means I have lots of ground in dirt and grass stains on my hands. Making my own hand scrub is practically necessary when trying to get the crud off my hands after gardening!

The first time I made this scrub I used a soft hands dish soap. Sounds weird, I know...but it really cleans stains well! As much as I'm working in the dirt and cleaning away a winters worth of dirt in the coops and barn I really need to mix up some new hand scrub!

Hand scrubs are one of the easiest body care products to make at home. There are really just 2 ingredients which makes this the easiest recipe of them all. It uses nothing but sugar and soap, plus a cute little jar!

How to care for maturing hair 10+ tips

One of the downfalls of aging is changes to our hair. The older we get the more delicate our hair can get...sometimes. Caring for maturing hair can be a lot more difficult than it was in our 20's and 30's! Not only are grey hairs emerging, but hair can get more brittle, thinner and even finer. Ugh!

As hair ages it starts shedding faster, but growing more slowly. This causes your hair to get thinner....there are less strands on your whole head. On top of that, sebum production reduces which can cause the hair to feel dryer. Then some hairs turn grey, which can cause them to either feel finer or courser. That is a lot going on!

How to Get Started Journaling

I have been journaling off and on since as long as I could remember. It started as a dear diary thing back in grade school and has changed a lot over the years. Now my journaling takes on more of a gratitude slant, but I've recently been working on a date book/journal focusing on the moon phases and seasons. I also like to write about my goals and things I want to happen in my life...they call that manifesting your dreams now. 

That's the beauty of journaling, it can be anything you want it to be.

Getting started journaling isn’t something that you need to think about too hard. Yes, there are numerous types and styles of journals and ways to do this that may or may not be more effective depending on your goals, but you can simply get some paper (or your computer) and get started today.

You don't need to get the perfect journal before you can start. Or find just the right app to use. Because then you'll want colored markers and stickers or some cute desk set before you can start. Next thing you know it's a year later and you still haven't made any progress. So just start damn it! Like, right now! Your first journal doesn't have to be perfect. In fact, it doesn't even have to be a book! Just start as soon as the urge hits you and you can adapt and change your journal as you go. 

Scribble on the back of a cocktail napkin if it's all you got...just get started! In fact, I'll make it super easy for you with these 11 tips to make starting a journal easy-peasy: