not-so-instant gratification...

This is a cup of espresso I enjoyed when I took my mother out to lunch for her birthday recently.  I will not be having another cup of espresso for at least another 27 days.  This is because I am three days in to, what I call, my 30 day "Get it Together" plan.  You can laugh now.  It does sound like a bad infomercial, I know, but I reached a moment when all the mundane, life maintenance kind of "stuff" that I had been neglecting started building up around me like sludge.  This brought me to the thought, "What if I just took the next 30 days and focused on getting it together?"  So here we are.  What are some of the things on my list for the next 30 days?  *Taking my car in to the shop (seriously, anyone who knows me understands that this has been an area of MAJOR neglect for quite some time.  A good question might be, does surviving 3 Chicago winters in a row with no heat make you a stronger person or a stupider one?  Let's hope I get the AC going for the summer)  *Going to the dentist (confession: I can't exactly remember my last visit, but it's been at least 3 years.  What's that?  No, I don't floss).  *Bring my lunch to work every day (a yogurt parfait from Starbucks does not constitute a good midday meal).  There is a variety of other to do's, but the biggest challenge will be the next one: for thirty days in a row, workout every day.  It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I'm too busy doing other things.  Or that's the excuse anyway.  But now I'm going to attempt to build a new habit so it's no longer something I have to drag myself to do.

So... what does this have to do with espresso?  Well, the whole spirit of this goal is to energize my life; to feel fresh - not in a dehydrated caffeine hangover.  I really enjoy coffee and espresso, and I do not plan on eliminating them from my life - but I think I need to loosen my grip on them (or their grip on me) just ever so slightly and let the exercising do the energizing.  I'm already passed the withdraw headache stage, so I think I'm on my way!!