No More Drinking

The world has shifted on its axis. Pigs have flown. 

Jade has stopped drinking. 

No, I'm not joking.

I've finally had enough of getting home after work every night and heading straight for our old hardwood, bar and shoving a corkscrew into a bottle of wine. 

I am nearly 24 years old and for the past few years of my life, I have been drinking wine almost every night. In actual fact, I think in the last 1460 days (rough figure... don't judge me) I have probably abstained from drinking a mere 3 nights in total. 

I've been kidding myself and thinking that it's OK. I'm a writer, it's what I'm supposed to do. I mean, you watch movies or read books about the surly, introvert writers that hide out in their darkened, dusty dens and tap away at their typewriters while swigging straight from a bottle. Well, after living in that pathetic stereotype for the majority of my life now my poor liver must be shot!

I'm probably being dramatic.... I only have two-three glasses of wine a night, I don't go absolutely mad. I couldn't afford to even if I wanted to!!! 

But I'm just over it. I'm over it all.
I've had enough of it. I want to traipse home after a hard day at work and curl up onto my couch while the kettle boils away. I want to kick off my black sky-high Aldo heels and ease my aching toes with a nice foot rub while I read a good book and sip at some tea.
That is how I imagine life to be.... not getting wrecked every night.

I want wine to be a special treat. It should be, shouldn't it? 

On Friday night, the latest season of my favorite show is finally airing here in South Africa. 

Season 19 of The Bachelor. 

So you can just guess what I'll be doing at 8.30pm in 3 days time (but hey, who's counting?).

I just love it. I've been waiting for months to have it start again and so I have decided that Friday is the time where I will indulge in a nice bottle of red me thinks. 

(Plus I just absolute adore Chris Soules.... heart palpitations..... right now! He's quite literally earth-shattering....)

Wine, vodka and ciders are expensive and although on Monday I became debt free (barring the cash I owe my father....sorry dad!) I have decided to save up for a Go Pro Hero 4 Silver Camera. 

It's for my upcoming travels to Bali and Philippines (5 months away!!!) Tell me, HOW can you go to such an incredible spot filled with surf and sea-life and not have a Go Pro with you to record your adventures!?

I've already put down a deposit on it so it is all mine when I can finally scrape the next couple of thousand together and hand it over to the cashier who laughs every time she sees me. 

I want to get it sooner rather than later so that I can learn how the thing works before jetting off. I don't want to spend my month across the globe fiddling around with it and trying to figure it out. So that means I need to cut a few certain things from my life - like wasting money on a bottle of wine a night... or going to beach bars and generously ordering copious amounts of shooters for everybody in the place! Buying Pringles and expensive cheeses from the Deli. It all needs to stop. 

I'm already a bit of an extreme cheapskate as it is (because I try and save every ounce of my salary possible to afford travel!) but over the next few months until I can go over and indulge in Indonesia, it's going to get even worse I'm afraid!

Above and beyond that.. as previously mentioned at the start of this glorious new year, 2015 is my time to get fit and healthy. Booze doesn't exactly fit in with that new notion now does it??

Just yesterday, I attended my first ever Crossfit class.
They do this fitness test on you and out of roughly 10 people, I came second!! Basically you have to do a 400m run, 40 air squats, 30 sit-ups, 20 push-ups and 10 pull-ups and there's this big daunting clock up on the wall that times you.
My time was 7 minutes and 10 seconds.
The person who beat me was at 6 minutes and 45 seconds - everyone else was up to 9 minutes and more!! So I really surprised myself!
I'm not really a competitive person but it did feel good to not be last, you know?

After two days of no drinking (tonight will be my third) and an evening of absolute pure TORTURE in the gym, I am feeling absolutely fabulous... although my muscles are aching in places where I didn't even know I had muscles!!!!

Waking up without that alcohol-induced thump in the back of my skull is so wonderful.
I can also concentrate so much more in the evenings on reading a good book or editing mine without getting lazy about it or forgetful... and in general I just feel better about myself.

Tomorrow, I am driving back to the gym after work and doing another round of Crossfit! Apparantly it will be totally different to Tuesday's class.... so that's exciting! I mean, it might be too early to be saying this, but I actually loved Crossfit! I'd been so scared of it for the longest time, thinking that it was for the extremists when really... it was tons of fun!

2015 - this is my year!