Self-Control

January, when every magazine exhorts us to LOSE WEIGHT and GET ORGANIZED!

How I loathe the marketing year....

Despite my extreme Capricorn tendencies of work, work, work, plod, plod, plod, I am no poster child of self-control.

Indeed, I walk hand-in-hand most days with my two best chums, Procrastination and You Deserve It.

Every day when I sit down at the keyboard to write I go through extreme calisthenics of avoidance:  "I must check my email - so and so may need me!", followed by "I wonder what so and so has written in their blog" or "What's up at the New York Times or Facebook or Pinterest or else I decide to read an article that will help me with my ______ (insert writing, cooking, current affairs, potential and current weight issues up or down, skincare, memory, etc, etc, etc).

When I finally start typing, well I am just good to go, but for some reason, I must twist myself like a pretzel for a good twenty minutes before I can begin!

As for my friend You Deserve It - this is also a close bosom buddy who makes me think I deserve everything I see, especially after working really hard (after procrastinating!).

I keep this friend mostly at bay, feeding it now and then (especially chocolate this Christmas), but for the next couple of months I am going to try and feed it less.  No extra goodies, no online shopping, no local shopping (well except for a book or two...)

The few weeks after Christmas always strike me as a period of fatigue - the parties, the late nights, the presents, the mess - they make you want to lie down on the couch and wait for Downton Abbey to start (TONIGHT!).

Don't get me wrong,I love it all, but when I finally pack it up and send it on its way (this time in an extremely taxing and organized fashion that I will appreciate in early December of 2015, but which my back regretted keenly after five hours of it yesterday.

I will admit to jealousy of friends with birthdays mid-summer.  I don't even want anything for my birthday this year (oh by the way - special birthday shout out to our friends Jen and Hexicon celebrating their Capricorn birthday this month as well!) and I likely couldn't afford it anyway with the upcoming trip to NYC!

However.  Ahem.  There are some things one shouldn't have self-control about.  In this category I put anything that brings you extreme joy and which hurts no one.

To this list I put forth:

1) Pink Champagne (well any champagne!)

I loved every sip I had of this bottle!

2) Croquembouche (well any dessert actually)

I have wanted to make one of these for the longest time and on New Year's Day my friend Martine and I - with great assistance from my daughter Sydney - made a small, but mighty one and it was GOOD!!!!

Not Martha-like yet, but I see a future for us...

3) Imaginary Giraffes and Real Friends

I have wanted a huge stuffed giraffe for a long time.  As in years.  As in many years.

Why you ask?  Why must you ask why?  Just because.   Should I confess I now own two? (in my defense the second is much smaller)  There is a story about why I have two giraffes but we need to be drinking pink champagne and eating croquembouche for me to do it justice.

Some would say it is too big for my small house.  I say: is there a house that is too small for a giraffe?  because that is a house I don't want to be in.

I have a feeling this giraffe is going to show up in a book soon.

I have mused about its name and then this afternoon it hit me: Russell.  The giraffe's name is Russell.  The smaller one is Noel.  You decide if that is an homage or not.

And the giraffes already have a pretty friend, Miss GetFresh, who stopped by for a night of frivolity and good food and fun games last week.  We hadn't seen each other in person for over a year and my husband said "that was a lot of talking".  He was right, it was.  And it was wonderful:

So yes, I will try and exert a little more self-control this year, except where it interferes with champagne, dessert, giraffes and GetFresh!

Cheers!

xoxo Wendy