Write Priorities

Every year it gets to the middle of winter and I start realising that it's not only the house that's needing a spring clean, it's the body too. I've already started on the house - cleaned out the kids' bedrooms last week and had a big throw out (so energising). And then on Friday it was a makeover for the big, walk-in storage cupboard where we put everything that we might use "one day". Well, for more than a year now I haven't been able to get into that store cupboard and if I want to put something away I just open the door and throw.

Like the house, the body can only take so much of this abuse. Now I'm a pretty healthy eater and I manage to get my exercise fairly regularly (a bit like the house having the dishes done and the washing hung out, but never getting the good scrub that it so needs), but the alcohol over-indulgence that goes along with netball season is wearing thin a little earlier this year. Don't get me wrong, I love the stuff, it makes me invincible! But for too many weekends running I've felt less than tip-top as I emerge on Monday morning for another hectic week of work and volunteer commitments and running around after the kids etc. This weekend we managed to make it through to Sunday without any extreme drinking. And then it was a glorious outdoor lunch-that-extended-into-tea for hubby's birthday at our place with eight great friends who we don't see nearly enough of. One brought morish starters and then we spit roasted some boned legs of lamb, served it with tabbouli and spinach salad and scalloped potatoes and a rustic cheesecake that is a cardiac arrest on a plate. All accompanied by a couple of glasses of bubbly, a superb bottle of red and some killer margaritas... 

Had a great time, but here I am again with that horrible Monday morning lethargy, a squidgy tummy and a thick head. The body is about to rebel, I can tell, and it's time to avert the crisis.

So, what to do? Well get off it I think. Not forever - that'd be like me promising to keep the house clean and tidy forever (and everyone knows how long that kind of promise would last). This is my pledge: From now until August 19 I'm not going to touch the stuff. Not a beer after a hard day's work, not a glass of champagne to mark the end of the week, not a drop of tequila sitting around the fire in the winter sunshine on a lazy Sunday. Instead I'll be sipping on soda water and nourishing my body with fresh broths and stuffing myself silly with fresh fruit and vegies and meat.

So that on August 19, when I am heading to Melbourne to see The Cat Empire play at the Palace Theatre, I will be in the tip-top condition to really let the hair down.