Progress Report

Now, I am planning to report on my progress on my resolutions every weekend, so that I have time to assess how I'm going. But I am just wanting to confirm to myself that I have made a real start.

Plus, you know, in my experience, you have to implement these types of resolutions right away. Otherwise, they are sort of like New Year's resolutions - fading away with the hangover.

Also, if you don't start them straight away, they sometimes make things worse. I can't tell you how many times, when I was growing up, I saw my mother declare that she would definitely be starting a strict diet on Monday. That declaration always led to her spending the entire weekend stuffing her face with all the things she was about to give up, until she felt so terrible that, come Monday, her only source of comfort was more junk food, so the strict diet never even started! I think that may have happened every weekend!

So, Resolution #1: I will exercise three times per week, eat no junk food, and make sure I have something home-cooked that I actually enjoy eating ready for when I come home from work every night.

I have had two exercise sessions so far (a very good swim and a decent walk), have not yet eaten any junk food, and spent part of the weekend filling our freezer with home-cooked food we both like to eat that can be defrosted any time I don't feel like cooking. These are mostly vegetarian and chicken options, as I also think I eat too much red meat. I was supposed to go bowling this morning with my partner, but our baby seems to have a cold, and so I am staying home with him. I just need one more exercise session to cover this week.

Resolution #2 : I will have $100 per fortnight automatically deducated into an account that I don't touch.

The $100 per fortnight deduction is arranged. Now all I have to do is learn to keep my hands off that account, despite the horrible electricity bill we just got! Actually, I was feeling so pleased with myself about getting this organised that I did our taxes as well, and a number of other financial errands, just to take advantage of the organisational roll I was on.

Resolution #3: Every week, I will do something for myself that doesn't involve food. Something that feeds my heart, my mind, my spirit.

After my swim at the pool, instead of hurrying home, I went and sat in their spa. It is a particularly great spa, because the pool is at the Australian Institute of Sport, where Australia's Olympic swimmers are trained. It has very strong jets that really work the muscles. I hate spas that just tickle! Those jets pummelled away at the sore, aching back I still have from an old injury more than a decade ago. It felt so good that I luxuriated in there for ages. And afterwards, I felt so loosened up that I kept wriggling, just to enjoy that feeling of freedom and mobility.

Then I thought about how little time I have spent outside lately, and how my skin has had that crawly feeling it gets when it has been deprived of sunlight, and I lay down on the lawn outside, in the mild winter sunlight, and read a very good novel I found in my partner's collection: James Baldwin's Go Tell It On the Mountain. Its a very powerful book, and although it is set in the 1930s, it brought back amazingly strong memories of a pentecostal church I went to in my teens. Its been a while since I read a book that was really literature, rather than just light reading (sometimes I think that people who have degrees in English literature read more crap than anyone else), and I really enjoyed myself. I felt great!

So, I'm making progress. And you know what? All your suggestions have been fantastic, and I am basically planning to follow all of them. I truly appreciate your interest, and the fact that you have given such excellent, constructive advice.

Thanks!