For the sake of the children ...

... I find myself revisiting a lot of undesirable habits.

For example, I rarely cook because I'm too hungry by the time I get home, and we've fallen into a pattern of eating in shifts so that I can eat in peace. With the result that our daughter rarely gets to participate in those family lunches/dinners that are so important to healthy eating. In retrospect, part of the reason is that I never got into the habit of cooking a properly balanced plate of food, and yet it is so easy: pasta and salad; vegetable stew, salad and fruit; good veggie sausages, steamed veg, and some rice ... All it requires is planning and freezing.

Or I decide on self-improvement programmes, but don't follow through, because I'm distracted by reading or some other activity that interests me most. I spent $100 on a Vipassana meditation course, but sleep (even drowsiness) wins out over meditation. Even though I know that I need to start meditating again in order to keep my monkey mind from worrying about nothing and everything. Same with morning Yoga: I have a 15-minute-routine "Yoga in Bed", but again laziness wins out. Even though I'm getting stiffer by the day. And it's not difficult to find those 15 minutes in the morning or in the evening - I notice that I have them, but spend them being drowsy or reading myself to sleep. This is not so much about the activities themselves, but about making a plan and sticking to it, about not giving in to the temptation to laze about.

I've at least managed to keep up with the housework: she loves watching me do it, and our house is somewhat more hygienic for it.