I've never placed much stock in New Year's resolutions, but I think I've made one that I might be able to keep.

It's Saturday morning, the first day of the new year, and I just made myself a cup of tea - to go, even though I'm not going anywhere.

Weekday mornings, I'm always in a hurry and end up drinking my tea on my way to work - from a stainless steel cylinder with a thick black rubber band around the middle, to protect my hand from the heat; and more rubber on the bottom, to decrease the chances of tipping it as I travel the bumpy back roads where I live.

I bought two of these mugs years ago and, surprisingly, neither of them has been lost, melted by the dishwasher or run over by my car, which happened once when I placed my Starbucks mug on the ground to search my purse for car keys.

But today is not a work day, and there is no need to hurry. Instead of a travel mug, I should be sipping tea from one of the colorful Fiestaware mugs or fine Lenox china teacups in my cupboard.

Cup holders, and, subsequently, travel mugs, have become standard automobile accessories, first as circular indentations on glove compartment doors in the 1960s and now cleverly retrofitted into dashboards and armrests. But somehow "to go" mugs have taken over my kitchen cupboard, as well as my life.

Today's busy lifestyles probably influence people's decision to use travel mugs, even when they're not on the go. I know the sturdy, lidded mugs are easy to carry from one place to the next, as I move quickly through my weekend chores. They also can be brought along in the car, if I have to run an errand or pick my daughter up from a Friday night sleepover at her friend's house.

But it doesn't have to be this way. Jack "Lucky" Aubrey, the dashing British captain played by Russell Crowe in "Master and Commander on the Far Side of the World" was always on the go, and he never drank tea from a travel mug. He used a cup and saucer. Whether placing his teacup atop a map of Napoleonic Europe as he charted a course around Cape Horn or delicately balancing it in a saucer as he stood at the helm of the HMS Surprise, pursuing his enemy across the high seas, Captain Jack made drinking tea look absolutely sublime.

There's a lesson to be learned here, and from it, my New Year's resolution. Sipping tea from a cup is about slowing down, taking the time to relax, not just another something to weave into an already busy day.

Throughout the year, I hope to learn to sip tea from a cup, to slow myself down, to relax and enjoy the moment. It may be more difficult than I think, but I've just prepared my second pot of tea, and this time I'm drinking it from a "teacup."