No more alcohol
This one will be easy at least until March, as I can’t drink while I’m taking the Amitriptyline anyway. That should be long enough to get me out of the habit of drinking a bottle of Crabbies on a Sunday night and then feeling like a zombie all of Monday from one drink. Not worth it. I don’t go out terribly often (I stopped going to the pub after choir because I was so tired!) so not buying drinks in pubs is easy enough. Although if I do find myself in one, choosing a non-alcoholic drink that isn’t packed full of sugar and caffeine is a bit more tricky. Mind you, most civilised pubs seem to sell tea these days.
No more coffee
I really like coffee, but it doesn’t like me. I stopped buying takeaway/cafe coffee ages ago, as that amount of milk really disagrees with me (and they cost a fortune!), but I do occasionally succumb to coffee at work. Which is awful, because it’s cheap nasty granules, and the decaf’s even worse. In fact, switching to decaf doesn’t help because it still upsets my stomach and gives me headaches. I already have a box of peppermint and a box of chai teabags on my desk, so I really have no excuse for ever drinking coffee at work. At home, the jar of instant that we buy whenever my parents come over really needs throwing out anyway. I might replace it with a small pack of fairtrade filter coffee (and buy a couple of in-cup filters or a cafetiere) so that guests can have nice coffee that I won’t be bothered to make for myself. (And when it inevitably goes off, undrunk, in the back of the fridge, I can use it to dye fabric with!) And it’s not as though I have a shortage of other things to drink…
Never waste a tea bag!
I started saving my herbal tea bags and freezing them, so that I could dye fabric with them when I had enough. Except that at some point I forgot about that, and we’ve just been chucking them out. I need to make up a bunch of freezer bags, each labelled with a particular kind of tea, so that it’s really easy to take the bag out of the mug and chuck it in the freezer. I’ve also just had a slightly mad idea about carrying around little organic cotton squares with me, so that if I have a cup of tea when I’m out and about, I can pop the teabag onto the fabric when I take it out of my tea, and at the end of the tea-drinking I can ditch the teabag but keep the little square of partially dyed fabric. (Which will be damp. In my handbag. Lovely.) I have an idea about making a “my year in tea” quilt with the pieces, but I’m absolutely certain that will never ever happen!
Walk home
At least to begin with, I’m not going to be well enough to walk to work, do the work, then walk home again. But I can probably catch the bus, do the work, and then walk home. This gives me time outside, boosts the vitamin D (weather permitting!), and helps me to get fit again. From town it’s about an hour and a quarter, from work about an hour, and from campus about 45 minutes. (All uphill.) And if I forget my waterproofs and get soaked, then at least I’ll be at home and can get changed, instead of dripping my way through work all day. The most difficult thing with this one will be motivation, especially while it’s still so dark and wet. Much easier to get the bus. But Dr Chan recommended gentle exercise, such as normal walking. And if I can’t do every day to begin with, that’s fine. I’ll do what I can.
Don’t Buy Stuff
If it’s not handmade, organic, ethically produced or second-hand, don’t buy it. If I don’t look in high street shops, and don’t look on TM Lewin’s website, I won’t know what’s out there, so I can’t waste time coveting it. I can set up searches on Ebay for things I really want (like the gorgeous Monsoon jumper with a tree on it that my sister was wearing over Christmas and is sold out in every size and colour), and make the majority of things for myself.
Note to self: this includes fabric and dress patterns. Knitting yarn is negotiable, as I can’t afford a jumper’s worth of handmade!
Walk the talk
Stop just collecting ancient almost-empty deodorant tubes and fossilised bits of soap, and actually get around to recycling them. Make tutorials, blog about it, show how easy it can be. When the current pots of Lush hand cream and moisturiser run out, make some. Share recipes. Also, throw out any old half-used tubes of stuff that are probably full of bacteria and yuck by now. (Save any useful jars though!) Go through the ever-increasing collection of aromatherapy, natural remedy and herbalism books, and actually read them! Or give them back to Oxfam. There probably isn’t a prize for owning the most copies of Culpeper. (Especially when they’re all cheap editions from the 1980s.)
Recap from 2012…
I think the only resolution I’ve actually managed to keep from last year has been stop messing with my hair. Well, for a certain value of “messing with”, anyway. I have cut in a fringe and shaved an undercut… but I haven’t bleached it or dyed it a funny colour, and I’ve let the top layer grow. My intention is to continue not messing with it, except for henna if I can be bothered, and one decent haircut to get rid of the last remaining inch of bleach damage.
Most of these resolutions are things I’ve been thinking about, or doing a bit half-heartedly, for ages anyway. Hopefully the beginning of a New Year will encourage me to actually make the effort!