Mardi Gras is officially over & Lent has started. Growing up I wasn't Catholic but I sure wanted to be! It seemed that most of my friends were & they all got to go to CCD, give up stuff for Lent & weren't able to eat meat on Friday's. I thought it was great! Ha! Fast forward a bunch of years later & here I am, all Catholic & stuff. The Lent thing isn't so easy after all. The popular thing to do is to give up something. That's all fine & good but it usually ends up being something like Coke, candy, etc. Last year I gave up candy. I mostly only ate it at work. We have a candy bowl with GOOD candy & it was real easy to grab a piece every time I walked by. Considering how much water I drink & the fact that I have to walk by the bowl on the way to the bathroom it equaled a good bit of chocolate. So I gave it up. In previous years I would look forward to the end of Lent so that I could go back to whatever I gave up. Not this time. I have only had 1 piece of candy from the bowl since Ash Wednesday, 2014!! The only reason I ate it was because it was a 3 Musketeers & it's my most favorite candy.
Rather than give something up some people vow to do something for Lent. Some people go to confession more regularly, some people are more intentional with their prayer life, etc. One year I went to Mass an extra time during the week. I would go on my lunch hour. I wouldn't mind doing that again but with the traffic in this town it's not possible for me to get back & forth to a Church at lunch. This year I decided that I wanted to go back to doing something. I'm going to learn to pray the Rosary. Being that I didn't grow up Catholic I've never learned this. I've been to a few funerals where it was done & I know the majority of the prayers, just not the order & the meaning behind the mysteries & things.
I bought this book on my Nook for .99.
There are even pictures!
In typical me fashion I've already screwed up. Some very nice but non Catholic person in the office brought Chick fil a mini chicken biscuits today. I'm working on my willpower, well lack thereof & decided that I could eat one. Just one little tiny biscuit. They're so good. Well, several HOURS later it hit me all of a sudden. CRAP, IT'S ASH WEDNESDAY & I ATE MEAT! It was a really small piece & in the grand scheme of things it's not a huge deal but it kinda sucks that less than 5 hours into my day I'd already screwed up. I'm back on the wagon now!
For tonight's dinner we'll be having eggplant lasagna. It is so good. My friend Cindy is running the Disney Princess 10K & Half (the Glass Slipper Challenge) this weekend as a charity partner for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. She's raised a ton of money & she wanted to do one last fundraising push so she's selling dinners. It's just to people in our subdivision & it's once a week. This is week 3. It's been fabulous! Y'all know I don't cook but now I don't even have to clean up. The first week was gumbo but we have that in the freezer so I didn't get it. Last week was lasagna. She delivered a 9x12 pan of lasagna that just had to be popped in the oven, along with bread & fruit for dessert. Last night was chicken enchilada's, rice & cookies. Monday she was testing an eggplant lasagna recipe for a vegetarian friend & Dean & I were guinea pigs. It was delicious. There was plenty left over so that's what's for dinner this Ash Wednesday. So Dean doesn't have to cook, neither of have to clean (aside from sticking stuff in the dishwasher) & money is raised for charity. It's a win win!
Is anyone giving up or doing anything for Lent?
Toodles!
I grew up Baptist, and Lent was never really discussed. I was much older before I even really knew what it was! Brandon and I have been talking about doing something for Lent, though we aren't Catholic or Methodist. I love the idea of it and what it represents. I also love your friend's fundraising idea! I wish someone in our neighborhood would sell dinners one night each week! :)
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