Only the penitent man will pass. The penitent man is humble, kneels before God. KNEELS!!

So Lent is upon us. Every year I generally get pretty jazzed about it, even though I am not Catholic and not even that good of a person. There is something rather satisfying about denying myself something. Does it bring me closer to God? Probably not. Does it reaffirm that I have some sort of will power? Yes it does.

Last year, Michael and I gave up cheese, which was the singularly hardest thing ever. I don't remember the outcome of it, but I am pretty sure that I failed. Cheese is like, my LIFE. I remember it spiraling into this insane vegan sort of diet and that was never the intention. A few years before that, I gave up meat and that worked so well that I developed a sort of allergy/sensitvity to certain types/cuts of beef so that now, I can pretty much only have ground beef and a little bit of roast... anything else makes me sick to my stomach.

So what to give up this year? I was thinking about the cheese thing, but I went to the grocery store a few days ago (which is bizarre for me to begin with) and I just bought lunch meats and cheeses and I am too poor/cheap to let that go to waste. So cheese is out. I find myself drinking a lot of soda at work, which is odd because I don't even really LIKE soda, so I think that is the first thing to go. Also, I think I am going to give up candy, even though I don't LIKE candy, I find myself eating a lot of it at work because it is always AROUND.

I think I am also going to try and make sure I get some sort of exercise everyday. I have been doing pretty well with that, walking 1-3 miles every few days, doing pilates and hitting the gym, but then I will go for a stretch of doing nothing, which I think is detrimental to the whole process (case in point, this weekend, where I barely got out of bed, let alone exercised).

That's a good start I think. I am feeling WAY better than I did this weekend. I went over to Jackie's house last night because I was tired of sitting around my house feeling sorry for myself. Granted, we didn't do anything but watch some American Idol and ate ice cream, but what else do you do with friends? She is letting me borrow her kicky flapper dress for the St. Valentine's Day Massacre Party this weekend (it's sort of ironic that I am wearing it, this is the dress I puked all over on Halloween 4 years ago... while Jackie was wearing it) so I think I will be mighty cute. This is a good excuse to wear my vintage mink stole that was my Great Grandmother's... I don't often have a reason to wear fur (not that I am some "Fur is Murder" PETA nazi, I just don't class it up to that degree).

So carpe diem, I suppose. Enough wallowing.


PS- To whomever is reading my blog from Virginia, who are you!? You check it like, ALL the time and I am not sure I even know anyone in Virginia. So message me or comment and let me know who you are... because I am flattered and you clearly have excellent taste.