A New Year's List-olution?!

Yes, it's that dreaded time of year when people ask you that awful question - "So, what's your New Year's Resolution then?"  Normally I come up with some line about not having made any, not believing in them, etc, but this year I actually have a resolution that I can hopefully stick to!!  Keep making progress on my list.  I have done some ear marking of tasks that I could possibly make a start on, or hopefully finish this year.

There are a couple of list items that have time limits on them, so what better time to start than January.  It's very easily measurable, and at least in my mind seems to make some sense.  The big one that I'm currently concentrating on is task 13 - Eat 5 portions of fruit and veg every day for a year.  4 days in and things are going surprisingly well!  There are now 2 fruit bowls in my kitchen, positively groaning with an array of fruits, both familiar and exotic.  Now fruit I've always felt quite comfortable with - apples and oranges don't really offend me greatly - but veg is another kettle of fish entirely!  I suppose I didn't like many vegetables growing up - sweetcorn and raw carrots (never cooked!) were about all I would actually enjoy.  Anything green was immediately discarded and we won't even begin to talk about the time when I resolutely refused potatoes for a few months!!  Over the last few years I have got better when it comes to veg, and I quite enjoy eating a variety of produce, even greens!! This is probably due to my parents growing veg in their garden at home.  Nothing is better than eating something that you have grown from a tiny seed in your own garden.  Unfortunately my flat is lacking outside space that is not in the form of a car park, so I'll have to rely on Morrisons for my veg supplies.

In an effort to ensure that the 5 a day was achieved I went looking for a cook book along the lines of "vegetarian meals for one", but instead stumbled across a wonderful find - a book entitled "The Great Big Vegetable Challenge".  The book works through an A-Z of vegetables and one woman's journey to persuade her young son to eat new kinds of vegetables.  I thought the idea was fantastic, and a great way to make my 5 a day task a bit more fun!  You can look at her blog following their progress at greatbigvegchallenge.blogspot.com I won't promise to eat a vegetable from every letter of the alphabet, but I'm going to try some new (and hopefully seasonal!) veg throughout the year.  So far I have faced my fear of celery, tried a new (and delicious) way of cooking brussel's sprouts and tried artichokes for the first time.  I'm looking forward to trying other things like celeriac, nori and plantain over the next few months.

I would also like to attempt task 3 - Go to the gym at least 3 times per week for a year.  Literally living next door to the gym and having a free membership through work should make this a fairly simple thing to achieve.  I'm going to take a wild guess that it will not be as easy as it sounds though!  I've booked myself on to a couple of exercise classes this week and I'll hopefully manage to squeeze in a session in the gym itself as well. There's time yet for me to turn into a gym obsessive - although to be quite honest I find it a little boring!

Spanish will hopefully be ongoing, although there's a possible question of class amalgamation to contend with. The tattoo could be done, but I'll need to decide on what I'm going to get done first! The saving will be started this year, the casino bet will be done soon - I've saved up the £100 from my bar tips (that way it's not like proper money, ahem), skin care products are ordered and I think if I can last 6 months then I'll tick that one off.  I'm ever hopeful of an abseil in May and I'll do the scuba diving lesson when I can arrange for a Friday night off work.  The books and movies are ongoing, although I've ground to a bit of a halt with James Joyce, and there's another, longer one of his "masterpieces" later in the list, urgh.  I also can't bring myself to send Up back to blockbuster, and I don't know when I'll have 4 spare hours to watch Once Upon A Time In America, maybe a lazy Sunday afternoon... I'll get them done soon!!

Hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year!