Lent for the Procrastinator

Despite the fact that my husband who sees me every day of my life, even at my worst, thinks that I am practically perfect in every way, I happen to know otherwise. I am a slacker. I am a Gen X-er to the core. I love to procrastinate and have never had a real job. By the time I was in high school I knew all I wanted to be when I grew up was a kept woman. Well, unfortunately I married a pizza driving college student who went on to become an unemployed grad student, so that plan didn't go quite as well as it could have. Although we are now out of the lean years following the drought, and I can afford a pair of $14.95 jeans once every 6 months, I have not quite landed in the lap of luxury where I can hire out all of the things I hate to do. Like dishes and making phone calls.

Luckily, it's Lent. That time of year when you give up one thing in order to become a better person and bring yourself closer to perfection. I think Lent is much more manageable than New Years Resolutions because it's only one thing for 40 days. Anyone can do that. The idea is of course that you have broken the bad habit or have become humbled by the process and purified by the trial, and don't go back to your wicked ways.



This is my 17th year of Lent. I started in high school with some friends. We were all working food jobs where the only perks were free soda and school hours off. We decided to give up carbonated drinks. I think we all lost about 5 lbs, which is pretty good for a teenage girl, and we were all sold on Lent. I have given up a number of other things over the years, and basically have no vices except yelling at my kids occasionally (maybe I'll work on that next year) and making fun of people's bad clothing choices, which I just label "people watching with side comments for future reference in case I want to use them as a character in something I write".

I was at a bit of a loss as to what to give up this year until I looked at the To Do
list on my fridge and realized that the list had been there for a long time and nothing was getting checked off. So PROCRASTINATION it had to be. I am only about a week into Lent and I would like to report that I have gone through 3 full "To Do" Lists, most of which was not on the original list because I hadn't gotten the more pressing items taken care of. I am down to some bigger projects now, like finishing painting the playroom table and chairs, and hanging pictures in the boys' room, and finishing a baby quilt for a girl in the ward which I started last month.

Once I have some of those projects finished I will post pictures so that I can brag about myself a bit (wink wink). If any of you are Lenting (I guess it would actually be called fasting but that doesn't sound right for what I am doing) let me know how it's going for you. Happy Lent!