The Month of Living Abstemiously: The 2012 Edition

No drinking in February tends to come at a most opportune moment. Today it feels most welcome, having spent a weekend overindulging at friends' nuptials in the Caribbean. That was terribly indulgent, and Sunday my body utterly rebelled at the thought of more booze for supper; this, of course, came in response to drinking rum most of the early evening while on a catamaran. Ahem. So I'm very much looking forward to it, along with trying to keep up with some healthier living i.e. exercise. I've not done much of that at all.

I've also failed utterly at two of my four resolutions - walking home and a movie. But:

• Tonight I am going to see a friend for dinner and I'm going to walk the three miles between work and the restaurant to meet her, so that's a start.

• I watched two movies on the plane to and from the nuptials - Moneyball, which made me really want to read the book (and delight in the badarsedness that is Brad Pitt), and Crazy Stupid Love, which I liked a lot more than I was expecting - although given that that was about zero, it's not saying much. Julianne Moore is just lovely, but it really would have been nice to have seen the movie flesh out why she wanted a divorce, but that wouldn't have fit with the narrative. Instead we got a lot of Steve Carrell (who I'm still on the fence about) and Ryan Gosling, who is nothing but a pleasure to watch, for many reasons.

And as tomorrow starts February off to a no-drinking bang, it's all go for seriously maintaining the other resolutions. I have had something green every single day, and it's been pretty easy, although I've had to go out of my way a couple of times to make it happen. It's been good for me so far, I think.

MERRY NEW YEAR!

What to expect from me in 2012: More of the same blathering, I expect, but with the following modest behavioural modifications:

1. Something green every day. Yep, there are days when, dear reader, I fail to intake anything green whatsoever. And that's not because I'm eating a shedload of tomatoes on those days, either. My level of healthy eating is indicated by whether I'm eating the green stuff, so I'm aiming for something green every single day. Not at all meals, not necessarily salad, but something green.
   
2. A Movie a Month. That should be easy enough. Ahem. But we almost never go to the movies and, even if it's old/repertory, I'd like to go more. I always feel so pathetic when it comes to Oscars time and I've not seen anything. We only just saw the Harry Potter final movie on the plane yesterday. Pathetic.
   
3. NDOW+1: No Drinking on Wednesdays (plus one). Wednesdays are my downfall, it seems, and it's time for it to be over. And in an effort to reduce my intake and to appease my doctor, I'm going for one extra day without booze per week. I think it's because it's an automatic reward for me after a long day at work - I just want to have a drink, but I don't assess whether I really want it or not. So this is the way to change that, I hope.*
   
4. The Long Walk Home. I'd like to walk home once a month. It's only 7.1 miles. Google maps reckons that will take me 2 hours, 24 minutes, but that's surely for people who walk quite a bit slower than me. Even if I only walk at 3.5mph, that's 2 hours, 2 minutes. Yes, it's a long time, but I love walking through New York. And if I do that in the snow - hella workout!

Those are the concrete resolutions. Otherwise it's the general wanting to read more books, trying to read more, take exercise, yada yada yada. This list by an amazing woman I met travelling is far more inspiring. Hmm. But it did make me want to do a retrospective of 2011. A little too late? Surely not.

* Note: I have broken this already. But a couple of dear friends got engaged. It was a glorious celebration and I only had two glasses of wine. Ahem. But I think NEXT week is the week to start.