Five Days Without Shopping Is Like Five Days Without Sunshine

Resolution Watch- January 5, 2010- Five Days Without Shopping is Like Five Days Without Sunshine.

I need to work on some strategies to keep myself on track with this ridiculous no shopping until my boyfriend drinks resolution I have made. Although only day 5 and I have not yet broken down and shopped for anything other than necessities, I anticipate that it will get harder and harder.

I have developed the following strategies:

Avoid similar like-minded people. I must avoid my co-workers who insist on telling me about all the sales around town. Especially must avoid a co-worker who sits right outside my office. When I told said co-worker of my no-shopping for a month plan she simply said, “That’s dumb!” and continued to tell me about hoodies she saw on sale and how they are perfect for the gym. She maintained that it was “still dumb” even when I explained I was doing it to be supportive. She is divorced too. Must start following the football playoffs and have water cooler talk with the men in my office instead. Or I guess I could talk to people at work, about work.

There is no addiction that can’t be cured by another addition. I will run. And run. And run. And I will make everyone else run too. The Marina is too close to the Legends and I ought not to be allowed to go there alone, without people to account to or timeframes to follow. I have a half marathon in two weeks so I can obsess about that or a while. Luckily I had the foresight to book our hotel in Tempe…not Scottsdale.

When all else fails, focus on my career. Fortunately, I am busy with work and have several cases which have been kind of simmering on the backburner for a couple of months but now are boiling over. These cases are complete with pain-in-the-ass opposing counsel so I will take my frustrations out on them instead of my loved ones. This will keep me busy and distracted from internet shopping over lunch.

Spend my lunch hours that I am not dealing with pain-in-the-ass opposing counsel at spinning class at the gym. I have actually scheduled Tuesday and Thursday noon as a recurring appointment on my calendar to try spinning class. One of my other resolutions is to stop being afraid of the road bike I bought in October and actually get on it. I figure spin class will be a good way to get closer to the resolution and a little more comfortable with those pedal thingys.

Focus on other New Year’s Resolution aka “WWNPD”. My only other significant New Year’s resolution is to be nice. I have only shared this resolution with a few people because it seems pretty daunting. But I have adopted the mantra “what would a nice person do” when faced with a difficult situation. When someone cuts me off outside of the Billinghurst Middle School kid drop off, I think “what would a nice person do?” Believe it or not, trying to be nice is taking a lot of focus and energy.

Fill my non-working, non-gymgoing, non-running, non-Taylor hours with mindless crap like movies about teenage vampires and the new season of the Bachelor. Although those skanky girls do wear some pretty cute clothes.

Progress Report:

So far the only debatable necessity that I have purchased was sunscreen at the recommendation of my dermatologist. She insisted really. Based on my northern European skin and the amount of time I spend in the elements running my little heart out. I did order it from Amazon because it is cheaper there than in the doctor’s office and confessed the purchase and it was agreed to be considered “a necessity”.

So far…so good.