I have no New Year’s resolutions but I have a few ordinary ones.

Foremost among them, and the root for all others, is that I will try to be happier. And if that sounds ridiculous to you – how can you just make yourself happier? – then think again, and go visit The Happiness Project. I am not resolving to spend a whole year on mine, not right now, but just try to be happier over the next month or so.

I have somehow ended up in a place where I feel life is all work and no play. I’m not depressed, but neither do I feel like I am having much fun in my life. I feel that I am passively floating along and not enjoying the journey much. I am stagnating. Not only does this make me unhappy, it also makes me snappish and short-tempered, which is not fun for those around me, either.

I feel like my days and nights are full of “musts”, leaving little time or energy for “wants”. By the time both kids are in bed, I usually can’t be bothered to do anything more demanding than surf the web or play on the iPad. I have read only 4 books in the almost 4 months since Adrian was born, and none in the past 5 weeks.

This is not how I want to live, definitely not in the long run (as in, until all existing and future children have reached school age) but not even in the short run (say, until I go back to work).

So I have recently resolved to:

• Read more. Read at least a little bit every evening. Reading always makes me feel good.
• Blog instead of surfing. Unlike surfing, blogging is an active activity, if you’ll excuse the pleonasm. Activity breeds energy, energy breeds more activity, and the passive floating along is replaced with a virtuous spiral.
• Along the same line, do crafts. I’ve mostly done textile crafts before (sewn, knitted, embroidered, etc) so that is probably what I will do now, too. I don’t want it to be too much of a challenge right now, just something that activates both mind and hands, and lets me accomplish something tangible.
• Do some sort of sports. Right now I cannot realistically expect to do anything outside the home, but at least some yoga at home. I suspect that this resolution is going to be the hardest one, because it requires the most energy to get started, so it will be easy to procrastinate each evening.

And in the very short term I have resolved to do (and indeed already done) something about the most energy-sapping part of my days, which is getting the kids to bed. But that’s a separate post.