A New Year

This blog has been dormant for quite some time, with only the occasional post here and there when it occurred to me that writing might be a good way to broadcast or explain something (usually, to myself). But I used to blog quite a bit.

Before this current iteration I had a blog by the same name that I started in 2005, for which I wrote about everything from feminism to taxidermy. And then I went to grad school and sort of grew up a bit more and decided that my blog should have a focus, and so I closed up shop on the original Skirt and started a new one to document such womanly, skirtish things as pregnancy, knitting, and cooking. That was fine until about 4.5 years ago, when I had my first child and the whole thing just sort of ground to a halt. Motherhood suddenly meant scarce time for cooking, knitting, and the other hobbies I had organized myself around at that time. I wrote a bit about that first kid, and then a sort of perfunctory birth post about the second, but it's been a long, long dry season.

Inspired by my friend Julie and her fabulous blog, however, I have made blogging one of my goals for 2015. And this time, I don't really care who reads it. In the past, my blogging felt very much like my scholarship. It was intended to be a conversation, or maybe a conversation-starter. But with so little time these days with two small kids and a full-time career, I've been searching for something I can do to reclaim a bit of myself from what often feels (although admittedly less each month as #2 gets every little bit older) like a day-to-day slog. Writing can be that thing, regardless of who reads it, because this time I'm writing to write.

So here we are. Again. In 2015. 

My big intention for the new year? Live more like a tourist in my own life. Look around. Try to be more present and more positive about what that present looks like. Pay attention to my breath. Take the time to step outside the routine. To that end, the specifics:

• Stop with the phone already. 
• Write. Blog at least weekly. Even if it's short. Writing for me has always been part hobby, part therapy, and part discovery. I could use some of all three.
• Read. I am about halfway through the first novel I've read for pleasure since my first child was born (and loving it). I'm hoping that less phone distraction=more reading. Carry the book around. Maybe buy a bigger bag that can carry a sizable book. I tried the e-reader thing and I missed holding the pages, feeling the materiality, knowing where I was in the books' time structures and being able to easily find something to re-read. Try to read five books this year. I already have the second and third sitting on my bedside table, waiting in line.
• Exercise at least three times per week. This has been my goal for a long time, and I fulfill it about 50% of the time. Strive harder.
• Date my husband. At least twice per month. If you don't have kids, stop laughing.
• Read the news every morning. 
• Become more engaged in my community. I am joining the Policy Advisory Committee of a large local foundation when it forms in the early part of this year, and I want to do more to connect my languishing scholarship with my current life, network, and feel more in touch with the world outside of my work and family.

I'm sure there are more. I'm looking forward to it.