Tag Archives: moi

Dry January

I decided to do “Dry January” this past month. I also decided to add potato chips to my list of banished foods for the first month of 2022. Significant Other and I had got into the habit, during the pandemic, of nightly wine with some snacks – usually highly-caloric snacks. Now, we never had more than a glass (or two), but still, when something becomes a daily habit or ritual, especially when it involves an addictive substance, it is probably a good idea to challenge it. Also, I wanted to lose some weight and give my arteries and organs a bit of a break to start the year, a “reset,” to use an over-used term. I had read numerous first-person columns about all of the great things that happened to other people when they signed up for however many “dry” days. You will feel better, look better and sleep better, I was told. Ha! Now, I have lost some weight, so I probably look a bit better and yes, weight loss is often a good feeling. But the thing I was most looking forward to – the sleeping better – never came to pass. I am still a terrible, restless and anxious sleeper. I can honestly say that, sans wine in my life I did not notice one wee iota of difference in my sleep patterns. So there goes some motivation for future wine-free months. That said, I do think I will forego nightly wine and keep potato chips to a minimum. The very good news is that I missed the junky food more than the wine. I was concerned the opposite would be the case, but after a couple of nights, I did not miss wine. I think habits are just that: habits. You replace them with another. I began having more herbal tea, sparkling water and diet gingerale than in previous months. I also partook of some alcohol-free wine. It was not bad, actually, but it did lack something…oh yeah, the thing that makes one’s shoulders go down apace.

Dry January: I give it seven out of a possible ten stars. Good to check one’s habits lest they become something more fiendish. But not the answer to all of one’s woes (real or imaginary).

New Glasses

I got new glasses – or rather, new frames on an old prescription — and I now realize they are identical to the ones Molly was wearing before Marcia Brady turned her into a popular girl (and then Molly became insufferable).

The Clothes of my Youth

As a teen and young woman in her 20s, I used to absolutely live in Sarah Clothes. The latter was a store in Ottawa – in the Glebe, the ‘hood of my youth – where I used to shop when I first began to spend my meager babysitting earnings. I adored the styles on offer there – one part hippy, one part Victorian, one part British colonial India. I still remember a perfect quilted Sarah Clothes jacket I owned. It was in lovely shades of blue with a floral print and I wore it with jeans or dresses or skirts (Sarah’s made the most divinely perfect crinkly cotton skirts). The clothes were such excellent quality, as well – I shopped there in the ’80s, primarily, and I was still wearing a couple of their blouses in the mid-aughts. Seriously! I just loved that store. I applied for a job there once and they did not hire me. Sigh.  A disappointment to my 18-year-old self.

For some reason I’ve been thinking about Sarah Clothes and I did a search on the internets, which turned up this link, as well as a link to the website of Sarah’s talented daughter, Andree.

Ah, nostalgia.