Post Natal Depression at 3 years.

I've written 3 posts about this now, I keep starting again.  It's hard to explain.  It's hard to admit, to myself and to the world.  I've been diagnosed with post-natal depression.  After 3 years.  I didn't even know it could present so late but apparently it can peak at age 4.  Three is a difficult age but I'm just not coping.

I hope that by writing about this I find it therapeutic as I did when I wrote honestly about our IVF.  I hope to feel less alone.  And maybe, help others feel less alone like with the IVF.  I used to receive messages about that at the time.  Perhaps it will be the same with this but I worry about coming across as ungrateful for the twins and our life.  I also worry about what they may think should they read this one day but I hope to teach them that mental health is important, can affect anyone and that this is nothing to do with them but is a medical problem affecting me and I do love them immensely, despite me finding motherhood extremely difficult right now.  I just feel like I need to be open and honest about this too.

My GP thinks my pnd has been bubbling away at a low level for a long time but with recent pressures at work, Nik's looming exam and more time alone dealing with two toddlers with challenging behaviour, I'm really struggling.

Toothy Tips - Fantastic Fluoride

We've already talked about brushing tips for toddlers and being careful with sugar but if you're wondering about the importance of the fluoride in your toothpaste, here's a bit more information.

Most patients I come across accept the role of fluoride as it's so widely used in toothpastes but there are those who avoid it and buy non-fluoride toothpastes.  There's also the controversy around the addition of fluoride to drinking water which is only done in certain areas so I'll talk about the benefits as well as reasons to be cautious with fluoride but I wouldn't be afraid of it and recommend using fluoride toothpaste.

Toothy Tips - Sneaky Sugars

I started this Toothy Tips series with tooth brushing tips for toddlers and I've already been asked for advice about sugar and snacking.  It seems a good time to be posting this with it being Halloween today and Halloween often meaning lots of sweeties and treats!  As always, if you have any queries about teeth or sugars, consult your own dentist, these are just a few tips based on what we do with the twins and my knowledge as a dentist.

Priya adores cashews as a snack, especially in the woods.

A Vogel herbal remedies - review

I was recently sent some A.Vogel products to test and although I tried out one right away, the other one had to wait until I needed it in order to give you my honest opinion on how it works.

The first one was the Bioforce herbal hand cream which has a yellowy tinge, presumably due to the herbs used, but smells quite nice.  I found it soaked in quite quickly and definitely made a difference to my hands.  I suffer from pompholyx eczema when I'm rundown and/or stressed which seems to be pretty much all the time lately!  As a result I need to keep my hands moisturised so this was ideal as it's a handy size to carry around as well as being gentle and not heavily scented.

The second item was the Po-Ho inhaler which contains essential oils of peppermint, eucalyptus, juniper, caraway and fennel.  I loved the smell of this as soon as it arrived and actually find it quite relaxing and as soon as Spider Season hit (OMG those blighters are huge this year!), so did the cold so I was able to test it out.  It is basically like the oils I've used before on a hanky or my pillow, a similar scent but in a handy lip balm sized inhaler you can pop in your pocket although it does also come as an oil.  It definitely seemed to work the same as other brands I've tried in the past and I found it very useful to keep on me when I was out with the kids and feeling bunged up.

I love essential oils (apparently peppermint oil keeps those spiders at bay too!) and have always liked herbal remedies like arnica cream for bruises so it's nice to have a couple more herbal treatments up my sleeve.  The A.Vogel products seem very high quality and they have a great philosophy with their Naturally Beautiful Promise: "Our beauty experts use fresh, active plant extracts to bring you luxurious skincare products. We make our products with love, care and respect for nature. Our beauty range is 100% vegetarian and we do not test on animals." 

Have you used any A.Vogel products before?  Do you have any herbal remedies you swear by?

Toothy Tips - Brushing Toddlers' Teeth

One of the requests thrown in by a reader in my feedback survey was regarding teeth.  This astute reader who remained anonymous had picked up on my occasional alludings to my profession and commented "Would love a feature on children and teeth - tips, funny stuff, how to tell you're at a good dentist (my experience has been dreadful with my little one), what you should do, products to use - I think you work in dentistry?! ??"

Lidl Nutrition Mixer Pro - review by Bex

You may have heard of the NutriBullet, NutriNinja or similar type blenders which are super powerful and claim to blitz all of the nutrition into your drink be it from fruit, veg or seeds, it pulverises them into the perfect smoothie.  However, they cost upwards of £80.  My blender attachment of my food processor has done me for smoothies but does sometimes struggle with ice or frozen fruit, simply blitzing the bottom half and leaving the remaining ingredients above.

A few months ago I was looking at these specific blitzers again (as I started my 90 day SSS plan) and Nik had a look online (he's always the bargain hunter) and discovered amazing reviews for Lidl's version, the Nutrition Mixer Pro.  Apparently, for a mere snip of the cost of the original versions at £29.99, the Lidl mixer is just as, if not more powerful at 900W and does the job fantastically.  On top of that, it comes with a 3 year warranty!

Unfortunately, as with most Lidl bargains, they didn't hang around for long and we searched and had family search all of our local Lidl stores to no avail and I went back to my boring old blender, smooshing stuff down with a wooden spoon when it wouldn't blend.

Fast-forward about 3 months to today and we headed to Lidl for BBQ supplies and found their specials of the week were all workout related with clothing and fitness equipment.  I picked up a fa vest top for £2.99 and almost missed the other side of the aisle but what did I find?  Of course, a huge pile of Nutrition Mixers!  A quick google search to make sure it was the right one that had all the great reviews and we snapped one up.  And so did Mum!

It comes with the base stand (with suction feet), a 700ml beaker, 2 x 350ml beakers, a cross blade, a straight blade (for chopping nuts), 2 x lids and instructions complete with 10 smoothie recipes.

My first smoothie was a take on my 90 day SSS plan Blueberry Boom.  I also added some spinach and mango which needed using up.  It was delicious!

It was definitely smoother than my blender manages and was super quick!  I can't wait to try a few more concoctions!  If you're thinking about a Nutri-mixer, I'd definitely recommend this £30 bargain from Lidl!!

90 day sss plan - progress update, thoughts and tips by Bex

I've now been on the Body Coach's 90 day Shift Shape and Sustain plan for 13 days.  I'm still enjoying it but have a few thoughts and tips for anyone else starting or thinking about signing up.

One of my favourites and one of the quicker meals is the Build Up Bagel - I tend to have this for breakfast as I prefer to do my workouts first thing, I swap the BBQ sauce for mustard or Cholula hot sauce (or both).  I get up about an hour or so before the twins as although the work out only takes around 20 minutes, by the time I've sorted my shakes, drunk them, taken my other supplements (vitamins, etc.), showered and prepared breakfast, it takes about an hour and a half.

After the birth

by Bex

So, our birth story was pretty straightforward, better than I imagined and we got some amazing photos of the event which I'm so chuffed with.  The next part was a bit harder.  I lost quite a lot of blood in theatre (1 litre) which left me a bit anaemic and therefore more tired than expected and extremely pale.  I was in a bit of pain following the surgery as well and had a catheter so was stuck in bed for the first day or so.  As a result, Nik changed all the nappies while we were in hospital and I only had to worry about feeding them.

Introducing the Olive Dragonfly Twins

by Bex

You have probably seen by now that we've had our twins!  Even if you missed the blog announcement, it's been hard to miss my tweets and instagram pictures of our gorgeous little bundles.  Sorry if you're not into babies, I might calm down a bit but I just can't get enough of them and am constantly taking photos of their sweet wee faces.  Life has changed so much and I couldn't be happier!

Anyway, here is a little introduction into how they came into this world.  It's not really a birth story as such since it was all pretty straightforward being an elective caesarean section.  There's not much to tell about the birth part, no going into labour, rushing to the hospital, etc. but I will briefly describe my experience of theatre and the surgery as I hope people might find it reassuring as well as knowing to make it clear what is important to you.  I wish we'd made more of a fuss about skin to skin asap, knowing the hospital encourage this we hadn't worried about it but I didn't get my babies for ages which was quite frustrating.

I wasn't overly worried about having a section as I know so many lovely ladies on Twitter who have had one, all of whom willing to talk about their experiences and many of the comments left on Rebecca's post about her section also reassured me.  I was mostly worried about the spinal anaesthetic as I have quite an arched back and Nik (who has done an anesthetics rotation before) had been getting me to practice curving over to the correct position and I was struggling to manage which had me worried they might have to resort to a general anaesthetic.  I would have been completely gutted if that were the case as I would not only miss it but they wouldn't let Nik into theatre if I was asleep so we'd both miss the birth AND we'd have no photos of the event.  I secretly hoped they might let him stay regardless since he is a surgeon and used to a theatre environment but luckily we never had to find out.

Our section was booked for Monday the 10th November.  We were given the option of anytime that week between 37 and 38 weeks and we chose the Monday as Nik already had that week booked as annual leave so we'd have the maximum time all together.  (Although I have to admit I was tempted to ask for the Friday so their date of birth would be 14/11/14.)  It was very strange knowing when the babies would be born but it definitely appealed to the planner in me!  I'm so glad they made it to full term and gave us the maximum amount of time to prepare for them in the new house as well as ensuring they were fit & healthy when they were born of course!  I also had a lovely meal before fasting on the last night - crispy duck pancakes from our local Chinese :)

Anyway, although the babies behaved and stayed inside, things didn't quite go to plan as we were bumped from first on the list due to medical reasons of another mother and by the time they were ready for us (which did seem quite delayed) there had been a huge amount of labouring women admitted, some of whom were more urgent than us.  Therefore, after being told we were about to go down in 5 minutes, we were then told that unfortunately they weren't able to carry out our elective section that day due to a shortage of staff to deal with the added influx of more complicated cases.  This was obviously quite tough having been so worked up with anticipation as well as having fasted from 2am and hanging out in the hospital for 5 hours by this point but we both understand that these things happen and some cases are definitely more of a priority.

They obviously brought me some food straight away and apologised and assured us that we'd be first on the list the next day unless there was another medical reason someone else needed to be.  So we went back home, took some more 'last day of the bump' photos and a boring dinner (as we didn't have much in since we thought we'd be in hospital for 3 nights) before bed and more fasting.

So take two back in the hospital and we were quite happy as we ended up with a bigger room this time (I think I mentioned before that all the rooms are private at Pembury with en suite bathrooms and Nik was allowed to stay over with me on our single airbed we took with us).  We also felt happier about our obstetric team on day two as the previous day we had asked about taking photos hoping we might get a better opportunity for good photos if they knew how important that was to us.  We knew we weren't allowed to include members of staff in the photos but explained how important photos are to us (and if I could have had my way I'd have liked to see the whole thing!) and would it be OK for Nik to take some of the babies coming out.  The registrar was not happy with this and said we could only take photos at the resuscitaire when the babies were taken to be cleaned and weighed as it's 'policy' that no pictures are allowed of the surgical site (for legal reasons we suspect).  So we weren't even going to be able to take photos as they were lifted up.  :(

As has become clear over many hundreds of posts on this blog, I am obsessed with photos.  I love documenting everything and especially something as special and longed for as this moment.  I really treasure pictures and had made it clear to Nik that I didn't care about him worrying about me and being by my head - I wanted him to concentrate on capturing the birth of the twins as best as possible.  We were really disappointed but there was nothing we could do although the lovely nurse who'd been looking after us said she would mention to them that Nik was a surgeon and would stay out of the way and respect the theatre staff.  When the consultant came to see us, she did say they would hold the babies up for one photo before they were taken to be cleaned up and then we could take as many as we wanted.

On day two however, we had an entirely different team and when we asked again about photos - they didn't care at all and said we could take any photos we wanted once the drapes were dropped!  Yay!!!  We later found out that the nurse (the same lovely one as the day before) also had a word with the consultant anaesthetist about how important this was for us and he was SO helpful in the theatre asking for us when the drapes could go down (as he could see what was happening) and he sorted them himself ensuring we had a good view and telling Nik as soon as he could stand for photos.  You can see the results below - I am THRILLED with them!  I'm so grateful to our chilled out team on the day and to Nik for taking such great shots - exactly what I hoped for!  My absolute favourite of the birth has to be this one of Priya making herself known to the world.  She was quiet as she was born but definitely had a 'TA-DA, I'M HERE' moment with arms and legs akimbo - quite the entrance I think!

As for the spinal - the positioning wasn't a problem.  The anaesthetic registrar did it and it was nothing like I expected, even when they said I'd feel pressure - it was minimal and before I knew it I felt the warmth spreading as they said it should, easy.  I obviously managed to get into the curved position they needed as they didn't seem to have any trouble and we were soon getting underway.  It was so friendly in theatre with everyone being very smiley and introducing themselves and what they did.  I imagine elective sections are a fun list to do with happy parents and cute babies without any drama.

The surgery itself was again absolutely fine, I felt less than I'd thought I would as I know the spinal just takes the pain away, not all sensations but I barely felt any pushing, pulling or movement as they got to work.  It wasn't long before Kalyan was born and he was whisked away to be checked - I'd hardly had a glimpse so again, the fantastic anaesthetist stepped in and asked for Mum (me, oh my gosh!) to get to see him properly before they took him away.  We had two paediatricians in the room as we were having twins so I wasn't able to get them handed to me first.

The hospital has just completed a trial in kangaroo care for sections and now offer wraps to everyone to wear under the hospital gown to encourage early skin to skin.  Being very keen for this to happen I had one on under my gown but we didn't actually get to have them skin to skin until we were in recovery.  I'd thought they would be passed back to me asap but despite me asking while they stitched me back up, I was only brought one of them completely bundled up in towels to have on my chest.  I'd hoped to get the babies back much quicker than I did and this was the only bit I was disappointed with about the whole event.  I mean, you can see below just how bundled they were when I had them both to be wheeled out of theatre - no chance of any skin contact there, we could hardly see their faces!

I had also thought Nik didn't get to cut the cords either as we forgot to ask about this in advance and no one asked him as far as I could hear.  I wasn't sure whether he could still do it without being scrubbed as they obviously need to keep the surgical field sterile.  As it turned out, although he didn't get to cut the cord to separate them from me and the placentas, he did get to cut them short later when they were being sorted out behind me.  While I was waiting for the babies to finally be passed to me I was trying to crane my neck to see them and watch what was happening but it was right behind my head so I just had to lie patiently waiting before they finally brought me Kalyan and Nik came over to join us while we waited on Priya and the anaesthetic reg took some photos of us.  Again, Nik took lots of photos though so I have now been able to get a glimpse of what was going on.

Whenever I felt remotely strange or nauseous, one word to the anaesthetics reg and she sorted me out.  The obstetrics reg apologised for her stitching job as she couldn't stop my scar pulling up a bit on the right apparently but I didn't care.  She said she had OCD (a good trait in a surgeon I reckon!) and felt pressure knowing Nik was a facial surgeon (we didn't tell her but someone did as she joked with me that I didn't warn her what he did when she'd popped in to introduce herself on the ward) so wanted to do a very neat job but I think it looks great and the midwife who took my dressing off on day 5 was very impressed with it!

Once I did have the babies safely snuggled into my chest in the recovery room it was just amazing, watching their instinct (well just his really as she was content just squishing her adorable chubby cheeks into me for a while) to headbob over and find a nipple to feed was just fascinating.  I was feeling fine after the surgery and just on cloud nine looking at our babies and marvelling at this moment I never thought would come.  I have never in my life felt so happy and full of awe.

This is back in my room after recovery, I just love how happy I look to have my two babies nestled in.

So here are the rest of my very favourite pictures from the birth and immediately after, I've been strict with myself here and may share more in another post.  There are some surgical type pictures so if you're squeamish you might not want to look.

Excitedly waiting to meet the twins!

And waiting (this was the Monday).

In theatre, ready for babies

Kalyan being born

They didn't hold him up so this is the best picture we have of his birth.

Priya making her grand entrance!

She was soon making noise.

Getting her checks done and all cleaned up.

Me finally getting to cuddle Kalyan.

Extremely well packaged babies!

Finally getting skin to skin with my babes!

Priya's little cubby hand.

And her smooshy wee face!

Peeking at Daddy and the camera.

Snuggling with my babies ready to go back to our room.

I took this one from my bed as Nik held Kalyan.

When I have time, I will write about the first few days after the birth which was unfortunately not quite as straightforward or fun!

Foodie Friday - Healthy Beef & Shiraz Casserole

by Bex

We made this recipe together a few weeks ago now and is definitely one we'll be adding to our winter repertoire.  It was lovely and pretty healthy!  It was an M&S find on their website, Beef & Shiraz casserole.

Ingredients:
400g lean diced beef 
2 whole onions, diced
2 large whole carrots, diced 
4 sticks celery, sliced 
2 tbsp plain flour 
2 sprigs fresh sage, roughly chopped
200g whole baby button mushrooms (we couldn't get baby ones so halved the big ones)
300mls beef stock
300mls red wine (we used Merlot as we had some open)
pinch ground black pepper
1 tbsp olive oil

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 150c / 130c fan

Heat the oil in a casserole dish, fry the meat until brown.  Add onions and fry for 5 minutes or until soft.  Add flour and stir to coat the meat.  Add the carrots, celery, sage, mushrooms and seasoning and stir fry together for a few minutes being careful not to burn the flour.

Pour over the Shiraz and beef stock and stir well.

Cover and cook in the pre-heated oven for 1 hour 50 minutes.

We made chive mash to go with it.

Rest for 5 minutes prior to serving on warm plates with extra veg of your choice.  I particularly love any green vegetables.

Healthy Mushroom Stroganoff recipe

by Bex

When I was shopping recently I spotted a massive box of mushrooms reduced to just £1.30 and thought I could make a mushroom stroganoff.  As I couldn't be bothered looking up a recipe in the supermarket, I just guessed that I had most things I would need at home (having made beef stroganoff before I remembered it's made with mustard and paprika and some kind of cream) the only thing I didn't have was cream so I bought half fat crème fraiche to keep it healthier.

Rather than just completely make it up, I googled and read about 4 recipes before deciding what to include in my own.  I ended up taking bits from each and at one point I was worried I'd ruined it as it didn't smell great and I thought maybe I should have kept it simple but by the time it was finished and I tasted it, I loved it!  Since I used the crème fraiche it's pretty healthy too!  :)

Serves 3-4
Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped (I also added a shallot as I had some left over)
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
500g mushrooms, sliced/quartered (I used chestnut mushrooms and quartered the smaller ones)
salt & pepper
1 tsp English mustard
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp tomato puree
2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp fresh thyme
2 tbsp sherry or white wine
200ml beef stock (or vegetable if you want to keep it veggie friendly)
2 tbsp lemon juice
150ml crème fraiche
extra black pepper (optional)
parmesan (optional)

Method:
Heat the oil in a large frying pan or wide saucepan and cook the onions and garlic over a medium heat for about 5 mins.  Add the mushrooms and fry for a further 5-7 minutes until browned.  Season with salt & pepper.

Remember, they shrink a lot!

Add the mustards, tomato puree, paprika, thyme and sherry and mix thoroughly into the mushrooms.  Add the stock and 1 tbsp of the lemon juice.

Simmer until the sauce thickens then remove from the heat and add the other tbsp of lemon juice and the creme fraiche (I also added more black pepper as I like it peppery) and stir through.

Serve with rice (I used brown microwave rice and it was actually nice!) and grate over some parmesan if you like.  I was really pleased with it and it was really easy to make.

January Joy - Make a fitness target

by Bex

Being entirely honest, I'm not having much success with my fitness at the moment.  Getting back into my exercise routine has been very difficult since Christmas.  I could come up with a number of excuses but basically I'm just lacking in motivation at the moment.  I'm currently quite content being cosy at home, enjoying reading (I can't believe I've never read Pride & Prejudice before!  I will probably have finished it by the time you read this), making recipes with Nik, writing for the blog and watching films in the evenings.  I'm quite happy with how I look and feel at the moment, especially since all my horrible bowel related symptoms disappeared after my colonoscopy and polypectomy.  :)

Less bloated and loving my sequins :)

I'm still keeping an eye on my weight though and making sure it doesn't sneak up past 185 lbs again (It's currently 184) so I am watching what I eat.  I reckon when January is over and hopefully all this horrible, cold rain stops I will definitely start walking to work again (I even enjoy walking in the snow, it's just the rain that puts me off) and hopefully get my motivation back in time to get fit for spring!  Also, it bugs me when the pool & gym are so busy in January, I prefer to wait for it to calm down a bit!  I actually have a reunion in March which I'd like to be a bit more toned for so I feel confident in my dress so that will hopefully motivate me enough to get back into swimming in February  :)

Anyway, since that's kind of on the back burner for now, I'm going to tell you about some of the recipes I've been loving recently.  I listed a few recipes the other day and have already made 3 of them which are fairly healthy - the venison steak, five-spice, soy & lemon roast chicken and cider, mustard & herb chicken.  I'll be sharing the recipes over the next couple of weeks as we adjusted some of them and absolutely loved them.  We'll definitely make them all again!  I also have quite a few recipes I made over Christmas to finish writing up for the blog so for those of you who asked about the strudel and cheesy dip recipes, don't worry - they are coming!  :)

This afternoon I am sharing the cider chicken recipe which we also made into a pie, delish!

2014 Resolutions - January Joy

by Bex

I don't usually make resolutions but I am SO pleased to see the back of 2013 and am really trying to be optimistic about 2014.  This also fits in with yesterday's January Joy prompt from Florence Finds which I am going to try to do this year.  (Today's is sorting out your skin though and although I'm trying to drink more water, my skin is way down my list of priorities at the moment and I just can't be bothered spending much time on it.)

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/250794272973055345/

The main things on my mind that I want to make happen this year are re-discovering my love of blogs.  I have hardly read any blog posts for the last 6 months or so.  I've known SO many people who've become pregnant over the last 2 years and while I am happy for all of them and still want to be aware of what's going on in their lives, I don't always want to read about baby related stuff.  As I don't know when there might be such posts, I tend to avoid blogs altogether and just concentrate on my own writing and other distractions.

The problem with this is, I miss the other stuff too, inspiring stuff, fun stuff and just being plain nosy about what's going on in other people's lives!  I'm trying to be less sensitive to reading about other people's happiness.  It's not that I want people to be less happy, PLEASE don't think that!  I basically need a bit of an attitude adjustment and rather than comparing my life to others' and thinking about what I'm missing out on, I need to think about the good things in my life and get out of self-pitying mode. I need to stop being so wrapped up in either the bad stuff or keeping myself distracted with dozens of projects and take some more time for others this year.  Like I said, I'm trying to be more positive and not dwell on the negative things we faced last year.  I want to be able to read about people's fun with their new families without feeling jealous.  I also want to comment on other blogs more!  I love receiving comments here but am very bad at reciprocating and commenting on the blog posts I do read elsewhere.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/250794272973057538/

The same thing applies to Twitter.  Although I have tweeted a lot in the last year, it has been very much about what I'm up to with very little actual interaction with my friends on there.  Again, this is mainly due to me avoiding main Twitter updates a lot of the time and missing all of the things that are happening.  I feel very out of touch with what is going on with the majority of the AOW community, something I used to really enjoy and love being a part of.  I need to make the effort to be a part of that again.  (Although I would just like to point out that they've still been there for me, even though I have been rubbish!  Whenever we have faced another hurdle, everyone has rallied round for me.  I'm so grateful for that but plan to make up for my lack of attention to their lives in the last year.  I feel so guilty that I have been missing what's going on with everyone else, it's often been Roz who's kept me up to date with things that are going on.  Thanks Roz.)

Courage, humour and grace.

Since I have been eating more healthily again (with the exception of Christmas week and now prepping for my colonoscopy) I have been feeling generally better and happier so I definitely need to keep it up this year and not let myself sink into any slumps.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/250794272972916610/

I failed in my reading challenge last year so will be aiming for 40 again this year.  I read 40 books in 2012 but only 27 in 2013.  With such a massive and constantly growing list of books to read I need to keep up my reading if I want to get through them all in this lifetime!

2012

2013

I also know I need to try harder to stop worrying so much.  I have one of those annoying minds and am always thinking too much, especially at bedtime!  (The reading should help with that too as it helps me wind down.)  

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/250794272973055304/

Apart from our infertility, I've also been stressing about moving this year but with both of these things, there's not much I can do to affect the outcome so there's no point getting all het up about it.  Easier said than done but it's worth trying.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/250794272973025705/

So to sum it up, my resolutions are to try to:

Have a better attitude

Be a better friend

Read more blogs

Eat healthily

Remember the good stuff and let the bad go

Keep exercising regularly

Read more books

Worry less

All of this is actually summed up pretty well in the following Pin...

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/245938829625426417/

Do you make resolutions?  Any tips for trying to stay positive and not think too much?  Any other resolutions you would recommend to help with my new start and new attitude?