Resolutions for 2012…

Happy New Year!

Very much a work in progress at the moment, but there are a few things that I want to resolve for the New Year:
 
1) Stop Messing With My Hair
As you can see, at the beginning of last month I shaved off all my hair down to a grade 8, which is about an inch long. The sides are still a little bit shorter than that, owing to a disastrous haircut I’d had a couple of days earlier. I’d basically bleached and dyed my hair into such a terrible state that the only possible course of action was to get rid of it and start again. I’ve given away my remaining pink dye and bleach, so that I can’t be tempted to do it again. I really want to grow my hair long again, and find out what colour it is.

Exceptions: Non-damaging colours such as henna. (If I can be bothered.) Going to see my one and only trusted hairdresser, Mel, for proper haircuts if necessary. Otherwise, LEAVE WELL ALONE, and perhaps make some pretty hairclips or knit some pretty hats for the inevitable growing-out frustrations.
 
 
2) Stop Buying New Clothes
When I started my new job in September, I bought a lot of new clothes to go with it. Now I have those clothes, I don’t need to buy any more. I may want more TM Lewin shirts, and they may be a bargain in TK Maxx (although not as much of a bargain as the one I bought in a charity shop the other day for £4!), but I don’t actually need any more. Ditto Jeffery~West shoes, funny-coloured Doc Martens, John Rocha trousers. If I do need new-to-me clothes, I can make things, and look in charity shops or on Ebay, and alter things I have already.

Exceptions: I genuinely need a pair of smart black leather shoes. This can wait until the weather’s nice enough that I’m not wearing boots all the time, but (assuming I don’t switch straight from boots to Birkenstocks) I’ll need shoes for work, come the spring. I’m saving up for Fairysteps, Conker, or Doc Martens For Life.
 
 
3) Stop Going to the Corner Shop
Far too often, when I’m at home on my own, I find myself wandering down to the corner shop. It’s a habit left over from when I used to go to the Post Office a lot. But now I just end up buying crisps and chocolate and fizzy drinks, which are bad for my health and cost me money. I don’t need to eat those things, and I can’t afford to waste the money, so I basically need to break the habit and just stop doing it. The same applies to popping across the road to M&S on a Friday, and grabbing a sandwich to eat at work. Even worse when I’ve actually taken food with me, but just don’t fancy eating it. It’s lazy, and it’s expensive. Much easier to take soup to work, or bread for toast.

Exceptions: None. I just need to stop doing it. Unless I genuinely need something from the corner shop, like milk, or Lemsip.
 
 
4) Walk Outside Every Day
I tried hard to do this last year, and I genuinely felt better for it. But then “go outside” became conflated with “go to corner shop”, which isn’t even a particularly nice walk. This year I want to work on the garden, which is still a disaster area, so that should help. And it’s only just over half a mile to walk all the way around the lake, so if I can go for a walk with my camera, that would be lovely too. I don’t even have an excuse on the days I’m at work, because the museum has an acre of garden that I could happily sit in to eat my lunch, or walk around between toddler sessions to clear my head.

Exceptions: Weather. Although I do have boots and coats and a brolly. And even in yesterday’s horrific wind and rain, there must have been half an hour when I could have gone out without getting disastrously wet.

I want to add cycling to this one at some stage too, but I need to keep things manageable to begin with. Given that last January I paid £120 to have my bike serviced, and in the past year I’ve ridden it precisely once (home from the bike shop!) I don’t want to get too carried away.
 
 
I do have some other Resolutions in mind, to do with Making Clothes and Taking Photos and Making Art, and Living Well. Those are the ones that still need thinking about. But the ones above seem like things I could start to work on straight away, and without too much complicated effort. I’m a bit too busy for complicated effort just at the moment.