Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Fat Tuesday

Today is Fat Tuesday, aka Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, or, as it was best known in my family, Pancake Day. This is the day before Ash Wednesday, the day which signals the beginning of Lent, a time for all good sinners to give up something for 40 days.....which is then Easter!!

All You Ever Wanted to Know About Mardi Gras But Were Afraid to Ask

So, today, you are supposed to pig out like the end of the world was coming. Then, for the next 40 days, you deprive yourself of something that you truly enjoy.....booze, smokes, chocolate (no! not chocolate!), swearing, whatever.

If you think about it, it's not so bad. Let's say that you were trying to give up smoking. Lent would be a pretty good excuse to try to do that.

If you were trying to lose a few pounds, maybe you give up your regular dinner-time dessert. Lent would be a pretty good time to try to do that.

I try to do this every year, although I don't have a lot of vices, so it gets interesting trying to find something to give up. One year it was chocolate. Thought I was going to die. So the following year I decided to clarify the type of chocolate that I was giving up (white vs dark vs milk)....these little justifications make a difference ya know!

So, what am I giving up this year? I don't drink. I don't smoke. I love chocolate, so I won't be giving that up for sure.

Any ideas????

5 comments:

Jeni said...

I have way too many vices to decide which one I should or even could attempt to give up for that 40-day period! Coffee -no way could I cope without my daily fixes of caffeine! Nicotine -if my family thinks I am moody and obnoxious now, they really don't want to see me without my smokes! Then, there's always my colorful vocabulary in which invoking lots of four-letter words and a few others too, has become so ingrained in me, I don't think I would even notice I'm using them at times so how could I possibly give them up, ya know. Chocolate - OMG - that is next to impossible too! If I could eliminate some of the cravings there first, maybe I could cut back a tad but even that is pretty doubtful! Puts me in quite a dilemma too. But, it's like New Year's Resolutions - which I don't do because I can't handle the guilt when I break those resolutions before the end of New Year's Day, I don't want to put myself on yet another guilt trip so I think I will just keep plugging away, swilling coffee, chain-smoking, cussing frequently and finding new and better ways of ingesting chocolate to try to keep me on a semi-even keel here!

jeweledrabbit said...

mas, you could always give up blogging. LOL

lattégirl said...

LOL, mairin!!

You might as well ask her to give up brushing her teeth!

jeweledrabbit said...

Or going to the gym. Heehee.

mas, you're right. I couldn't live without you for 40 days.

terry said...

NOT chocolate....!!