Lent

I know, I know, Lent began on Wednesday and today is Friday. Yes, I am two days late with this post, but I figure better late than never! (oh wait, this seems to be the motto of my entire life! Anyway, moving on...)

For the last few years, my friends, co-workers, and I, have participated in Lent. We all commit to abstain from something or commit to do something that will better us for 40 days (until Easter Sunday). Then if we slip up, we owe $1.00 for each mishap and at the end of the 40 days all of the money collected goes to charity. It's a win-win. Like that year I gave up Peeps and Mt. Dew...the Utah Food Bank made out like a bandit from my $75-ish contribution alone! (Okay, so that wasn't one of my stronger years of self control, but hey, it was for a good cause...)

I don't know if there are any of you who love the Girl Scout Cookies, but I sure do as many of you know and as I have already mentioned in multiple previous posts. I had considered giving up ThinMints, when this thought hit me...If I were to give up those little gems, and then were to have a moment of weakness and let's say 'fall face first into a box of them' I would end up owing a whopping $28 if I finished off the whole box! So at $3.50 just to purchase the cookies and then with the fee being $1 for each slip up or in this case each cookie, I decided against giving them up for Lent as it would be too pricey for me who has so little self control when it comes to the chocolate covered bits of heaven! So I went with giving up baked goods from any store or restaurant (I figure I will be much less likely to consume treats if I have to make them myself) and also committed to hitting the treadmill 4 times a week. (In case you are wondering, I have already tossed $4 into the Lent jar...1 brownie and 3 days of no treadmill. Oopsy. But this is a minimal contribution compared to the $15 someone who gave up the 's' word has already tossed in. I'm just sayin...)

So this year is no exception. We are going ahead with Lent commitments and for those of you, (who I hope is everyone reading this) who want to participate, each slip-up will cost you $1.00 and all of the proceeds go to the Backpack Mission (click HERE to see a previous blog post that will give you all the deets on this incredible organization). We have quite a list of participants this year giving up a variety of vices...there's everything from Ice Cream to Alcohol to Cheetos to before mentioned use of the $#it word.

So who is in? What vice are you going to give up? What are you going to commit to do to make yourself better? Join the fun. And just think, you will only have to give it up for 38 days as we are already 2 days into this bad boy!...