Summer is all about sailing away from the safe harbor and throwing off the bowlines. No regrets, not even a letter. The schedule and the routine fly out the window and you live each day as it comes, right? That’s pretty much what happened at our house anyway. Along our summer journey, we managed to acquire a few bad habits that need breaking. Bad habits are like a comfy bed; easy to get into but hard to get out of. It can take weeks before you stop feeling the pull of that pesky thing, even after you’ve pledged to kick it. But now’s the time for us to make our pledge and put an end to the habits that are dragging us down.

For starters, we have been enjoying the laziness of summer. That sounds great, right? But in our case, it went beyond the “laziness of summer” and headed straight into plain laziness. Our meals have consisted of lots of takeout and sandwiches. At first, I enjoyed losing the burden of planning and cooking. Whatever will be, will be, ya know? But now, I feel sluggish and certainly overweight. I don’t remember how to meal plan at this point. It’s pretty sad when you start considering the pineapple on your pizza a fruit serving for the day. Now I’m putting the pressure on myself to start fresh (literally and figuratively) and plan some healthy meals the family will all enjoy. Oh, and that are vegetarian. And easy to make with very little time. Wait? Can I consider the pineapple on the pizza a fruit serving?

Spoiled by a central air conditioning system that finally works, my daughter spent way too many hours inside in front of the boob tube this summer. Seriously, how many times can a child watch Disney’s Descendents? Apparently the answer is 147 times. In a week.

This week, I drew the line. I was tired of us (yes, the adults were guilty too) zoning out and not even talking to each other from the moment we sit down to dinner until bedtime. I made the proclamation that the TV gets turned off as soon as the last bite of dinner goes down. From then until bedtime it’s games, talking, drawing, reading and, once school starts, homework. After my daughter was finished throwing her tantrum about it, I asked her “Wouldn’t it be cool to spend time getting to know each other more?” That might have been a little ambitious to ask of a 7-year old, but so far she’s been enjoying the matches (And re-matches.  And re-re-matches!) of Old Maid we’ve been playing.

I consider it a huge win against the war of bad habits that we’ve made it a few days on the right path. Now if I can only convince myself to stop hitting the snooze button and go exercise every morning…good habits here I come.