A Few of My New Year’s Resolutions For 2025
A few of my aspirations that will help you live your best life
As usual, I waited until the eleventh hour to share New Year’s resolutions for 2025. But now that I’ve arrived at that critical point of now or never, I’ll share with you some of the ones I have for what promises to be a challenging new year.
Health is the top priority. It is the foundation for everything else. Most of all, like all of you, I want to continue to improve my diet. By focusing on the quality of the food that I eat, I’ve done well in 2024, actually really well.
I intend to continue reducing sodium and eliminating added sugar (including organic cane) and artificial sweeteners. I do drink soda like Olipop. This healthy alternative has fiber and prebiotic ingredients like cassava root, chicory, Jerusalem artichoke, inulin, nopal cactus, marshmallow root, and stevia. These have also made me a hero with my kids, as they love these healthier soft drinks.
I intend to take the organic concept further in the personal care and cosmetic products my kids and I purchase. I’m trying to cook more for them so they eat healthier.
I want to get more organic and sustainable clothing.
Thankfully, I have a friend who shares with me how to take care of my skin and how I look, and I trust them, so I’ll pay attention to them.
I will continue to find ways to reduce my reliance on plastic petrochemicals. I know I won’t be perfect. But I will do whatever I can. It may not seem like much on an individual level. Still, if we all do things like buy our condiments in glass instead of plastic or prefer least packaged products, it will make a difference in reducing the economic incentives to build more plastic plants in communities in areas of Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and Alabama. This is called voting with your shopping dollars, a more important concept in light of the new administration’s refusal to moderate the nation’s wasteful use of throwaway plastic products.
Speaking of which, you might want to try Straus’s organic milk in glass bottles (old school). Their half-and-half is delicious. Everything is so much more delicious when contained in glass instead of plastic.
I will listen to more books on Audible (since I work all day at a keyboard) when I want to feed my soul instead of killing it with the blather of cable news and social media. The audio versions of the journals of Lewis and Clark nurture and restore my vision of America (check out Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose). President Thomas Jefferson sent a herbalist, Meriwether Lewis, who had learned from his mother, to explore the Louisiana Territory. Yet, our news media continues to relegate one of the most significant movements in America — natural health — which is based on herbalism — to fringe status and deny real threats, such as excess fluoride exposure in public water supplies. Throwing out Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lost the election for the Democratic Party. The fact that the vice president would have been canceled for playing smart politics shows the party’s shortsightedness. Most people are with him on some issues (though not all). He is a Democrat, after all.
I will walk the big hill near our home twice daily with our border collies. We must be physically strong to be mentally strong.
I will keep designing my garden, the project of a lifetime. I’m sure you have similar passions and purposes that will keep you focused and alive.
I will love more generously and offer more of myself with less defensiveness. I want to be out there more and talk to folks.
I mentioned tuning out the media, but I am tuning into my personal connections and making them even stronger. I intend to make music and jam with my good friend Robert Taylor, who played keyboards for Otis Redding, Etta James, and Sam Cooke. It’s regenerative.
That’s it for now.
Happy New Year!
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After a year of interviewing some of the most heroic parents in America today, I’m delighted to announce copies of Raising Healthy Kids: Protecting Your Children from Hidden Chemical Toxins are available. Be sure to visit your independent bookseller to purchase your copy or https://tinyurl.com/4a9ctywu.
