LENT

I have decided to participate in Lent this year. Am I Catholic? no. Episcopalian? no. Methodist? no. However, alot of my friends are one of the above, and I thought it would be good for me to participate with them in hopes of encouraging one another for the next 40 days to give up some sort of eating, drinking, saying (or rather...not saying), or doing something that we consider a big part of our lives. I chose to give up Diet Coke. As most people know, I am somewhat addicted to DC. I usually drink about 3 or 4 per-day, depending on my stress level that day (more stress= more DC). I started last Wednesday (don't worry, I went to the gas station Tuesday night at 11pm and got a BIG GULP in hopes of tying me over the next 40 days). WELL....I made it to Saturday before I started second-guessing myself. I mean, do I REALLY need to participate in this?? After all, I am non-denominational, which means I can pretty much get away with anything (i'm kidding...but maybe a little serious about lent) so I reasoned for a while with myself...and tried to convince Stuart to convince me...that it was ok to have just ONE diet coke and that it was all about moderation (his words, not mine). So this conversation goes down like 5 minutes from Louisville (on our way to Jackson) and I make him pull over at the first gas station we see and I immediately ran inside and got the BIGGEST fountain drink of DC I have ever seen. It was glorious. But my cheating doesn't stop there...I ended up drinking like 4 more glasses over the weekend because Natalie's mom had a whole 2- Liter at their house (I mean what else was I supposed to drink?? I can't get dehydrated!!). I have cheated twice more since this weekend (once last night at a catfish dinner...a story which deserves a whole seperate blog post entirely....at which Dylan ATTEMPTED to take the drink away from me and I pitched a fit until he gave it back) and then today at lunch, but ONLY because I had a coupon for a free 21oz. fountain drink with my subway sandwich (I can't turn down free diet coke, are you crazy?!) And this has been the most stressful day EVER...so i think I deserved it. But that doesn't matter during Lent, now does it?

I say all of this to say....I am still going to try to do this Lent thing. For REAL from here on out. I obviously have little to no self-control, but I guess you gotta learn sometime. I ask this: if you are around me in the next 30 something days and I have a diet coke in my hand, make me feel REALLY bad about it. I need it. And if you are DRINKING one around me, well then we are not friends anymore, because friends don't needlessly TEMPT their friends.