Turning Over a New Leaf

It’s New Year’s Eve and time to ring in the new year (welcome and celebrate the new year)!

For many people, the start of a new year means starting with a clean slate.

Slate is type of dark gray stone. In the old days, each student would have his or her own piece of slate to write on in the classroom.

Slate was easy to write on and to erase (removed writing). So “starting with a clean slate” means you’ve erased the past and are starting again.

For some, the new year is a time to kick a habit.

A habit is something we do that is difficult to stop doing.

Bad habits include smoking, drinking too much alcohol, biting your fingernails, and kicking cats (okay, not that last one).

To kick a bad habit is to stop doing something bad or something that is bad for you.

I will state (announce) right here that my New Year’s resolution (promise) is to kick no more cats.*

If you kick your bad habits and make better life decisions, you are turning over a new leaf.

We use this idiom, “to turn over a new leaf,” to mean that we are making a positive change in our life, usually after bad or negative period.

Earlier this year, I turned over a new leaf and began weight training (lifting heavy weights to build muscle) and exercising regularly. (You start losing muscles when you get old if you don’t do anything about it!)

I don’t look like Arnold Schwarzenegger (yet), but check back with me (ask me again) in a few years…well, maybe in a few decades (groups of 10 years).

And if you falter (lose strength or motivation), don’t forget: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

This means to be persistent (don’t stop trying).

If all else fails (If every effort is unsuccessful), you and I will turn over a new leaf again in 2021.

Happy New Year!

Jeff

*Maybe

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Here is just a small part of what you’re going to learn in this free lesson:

• What “take a rain check” means and how to use it in a conversation . . .
• The difference between a “recluse” and a “busybody” . . .
• Why “to fend OFF” means something from “to fend FOR” . . .
• What it means to “take a rain check,” “keep to yourself,” and “to appoint (someone)” . . .
• What a social secretary is . . .
• The best way to use “to sort out” and “to turn down” . . .
• How to use phrasal verbs like “to settle in” and “to settle down” (they’re not the same!) . . .

And much, much more!

from ESL Podcast Blog https://www.eslpod.com/eslpod_blog/2019/12/31/turning-over-a-new-leaf/
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