Lent

It's hard to believe that it's only been a week since I last wrote something. It feels like so much longer. Maybe because of the 16-18 hour workdays. In the 11 days, I've judged two days of talent competitions for America's Got Talent, had 1Tech/3 Dress rehearsals for Ramona Quimby as well as 5 days of performances of Ramona Quimby(some 3 shows a day), we did the cast party after the performance on Sunday afternoon for Ramona with still 2 school matinee shows this morning, and provided the sound and tech support for the Vagina Monologues performance Saturday night. Last night I got home to a yard full of branches from when the tree trimmers came by last week. I had only finished cleaning up everything that had fallen during the story the week before.

I spent about 2 1/2 hours dragging branches from my yard to the pile on the street. Then I went in and made photo discs for the Ramona Quimby cast and tried to prepare for my read through of Sugar Bean Sisters tonight. As I sat exhausted on the couch after it got too dark to drag limbs I thought about the book Outliers and the story about a Chinese proverb that says "He who rises before the dawn to go to work will be a wealthy man." I'm not seeing the wealth. I'm just seeing the exhaustion. No one ever promised me that life would be easy. I thought about the line from the play Ramona Quimby when the dad tells Ramona "being a grown up means that sometimes you have to do things that you don't like doing." Ramona responds "it's not fair that life is not fair." I wish that the limbs in my yard didn't fall. My daughter Jade wishes that Daylight Savings Time didn't happen in the spring. (She really didn't like getting up today.) Somethings in life are hard. Somethings you have a choice about.

My daughter Jade is trying to give up her favorite food for Lent- Soup. Jade will eat soup for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (and has!) I thought I would try to give up artificial sweetener. I know that may sound odd. I generally put artificial sweetener in my coffee all day long. I know that it isn't good for me so I was trying to switch to natural sugar. I haven't been having much luck getting the measurements right. Too much... not enough... all while I'm exhausted from work. On Saturday I finally gave up and went back to my one packet of Splenda in my coffee. I know it doesn't seem like much. I probably should have given up sweeteners, both natural and artificial, altogether. Jade is doing a much better job of sticking to her Lent routine. I heard someone at church yesterday who will remain nameless that said "I didn't know that Lent was during Spring Break! I gave up beer for Lent, I just realized that I won't be able to drink a beer during Spring Break vacation, and I really like beer!"

I once tried giving up chocolate for lent. I did alright with that. Dieting is a little difficult for me but not impossible. You can take away my food but you can't take away my coffee.The season of Lent asks us to move out of the routine and into the intentional way of living. I'm trying to move out of my routine but this year I'm finding the going a lot tougher than usual.