To be honest I have never been one to make a New Year’s Resolution. It’s the end of the retail Holiday Season, for years I went right into annual inventory by January 7th. When it’s 100+ hours of overnight shifts in a week—eating healthy and being on top of exercising is not even a thought. The week of vacation I take in January is about decompressing, catching up on my pleasure reading, and giving myself the chance to recenter with a daytime cocktail.
I don’t how it took this many years for me to come across it, but opening the recent issue of All Recipes introduced me to Nowruz the Persian New Year. There is not a drop of Middle Eastern Blood in my New Amsterdam heritage but the whole idea speaks to me. Spring really is the best time to start a new. My perennial herb garden is starting to fill in, the hyacinths are starting to come through, and I get to do outside cardio even if it means pushing a 9 pound dog in a stroller.
After a few years I’ve come to realize why spring for my “New Years Resolutions” makes perfect sense:
- The new weather makes me want to get outside. It’s much more fun to be outside in the warmth and sun not on a treadmill. Most years my first Jones Beach workout is May 4th, looking optimistically at my favorite concert venue;
- You don’t feel the pressure to compete with everyone else’s New Years goals, you just do you;
- It’s a lot easier to make healthy living goals when local produce is in the markets and you can go into your backyard and cut fresh herbs. I’m already looking forward to the fresh summer vegetables from my garden;
- I wake-up to sun streaming into the windows by 7 am and it’s still light at 7pm. As someone who tries stops caffeine by 2pm the extra sunlight really does help.
I wish I could say I was starting a trend, but I think a whole culture proves my point. And yes I’ve accepted the fact that I am a person that owns a dog stroller.