What have I done?!!!!!?

I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this whole new year attitude of mine.  For those of you that don’t know, at the strike of midnight of the last day of 2010, I became violently ill.  We’re talking Alien type of illness here.  Actually, that might have been welcome to what I was going through.  It was horrendous and God awful and I never, ever want to be that sick again.  And just in case you’re wondering, it wasn’t alcohol induced.  I was legitimately sick.  A bacterial infection.  I don’t know what kind of bacteria would want to do that to me or why it thought it needed to make it’s presence known, but it sure as hell is off my Christmas list for this year.

Anyway, once I was able to form coherent thoughts and hold my head up unassisted again, I set off on taking charge of my life, resolution style.  I already had a considerable head start on my weight loss for the year and 5 days into this new year am still verging on the queasy side of things.  So I just let that resolution lie. 

My next task was to clean and de-clutter.  I had literally walked in my house Christmas day after time with family and promptly removed the tree and most of the decorations.  The fact that I wanted to stomp them down into the box has nothing to do with Christmas, so moving on.  A lot of de-cluttering was already done.  We assigned new household chores, made up a fresh batch of weekly rewards and everyone set out on their cleaning without a complaint.  Except me, my head was beginning to spin again.  But I forged ahead with a smile and we all accomplished our goals for that day.  I thought about hoisting my kids on my shoulders and running around the living room for a victory lap, but again, my head.

So on to the next idea.  This one was a moment of absolute inspiration from my cousin.  She and her children will go a month at a time without buying anything.  WHAT?  That’s right.  They buy gas, food, TP…we’re talking necessity only type stuff and NOTHING else.  They won’t even cheat and eat out (it is food and you do need it, right?).  Unless someone has invited them, they eat at home.  Unheard of.  I know.  I decided our family should give this a try.  Don’t get me wrong.  We don’t spend all of our disposable income on crap.  We live without cable and internet.  We have a Netflix account, one cheap cell phone and that’s it.  Nothing superfluous.  But we do go out to eat more than we should, we do buy meaningless junk at the dollar store and I, yes I, buy stuff I don’t even need.  I will drive to a store just for the sole purpose of buying something I don’t need.  WHO DOES THAT?  IT’S CRAZY! 

So my husband and I agreed.  No buying anything this month.  We laid the ground rules.  Netflix and the McWane Center are in, because we already have a membership.  No extraneous Wal-Mart trips, no cruising the clearance aisle at Target and absolutely no driving to Michael’s just because.  We would also not be ordering out any pizza or catching a Happy Meal while we are out.  I thought this was going to be a cinch and really more of a lesson to the kids about what is a need and what is a want.  (I’m sure you can see my patting myself on the back and fixing my hair just about now…can’t you?)

Well, guess what?  I was wrong.

First thing this morning while buying gas, I think to myself, “I’m so thirsty.  I should just grab a soda.”  Then I reminded myself of ‘the plan’.  Fine.  No soda.  And no quick bite on the way to my mom’s.  Instead, my stepdad fixed me a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast.  Hey, less calories than the biscuit I would have eaten…two resolutions for one!  And it didn’t cost me anything.

But I failed shortly thereafter.  If you are friends with me on Facebook, you saw me post that Starbuck’s deal.  I am here to admit, I bought it.  I did not even give it a second thought.  It wasn’t until I went to print it that I realized I had broken ‘the plan’.  ALREADY!!!! 

This is going to be soooo much harder than I thought.  I would really like to give my cousin a big “Atta girl!” for having done this so many times before.  You are a giant among women.  Even though you are tiny.  And so pretty.