Fat Tuesday

I can't believe Lent starts in a matter of hours. I feel like we just got over Advent. The past couple months have just flown by.

I love Lent. It is such a time of personal growth and renewal. It also marks that Spring starts somewhere in between. It is something I always look forward too.

Over the years, I have given up physical things like soda, sweets, junk food, etc. Those are too easy for me. They are also bad too. I notice when I give up a treat, I overindulge in the week after Easter. Looking back, I feel like it was something I just did and was back to it after 40 days. In the past 5-10 years, I have turned to my spiritual nurturing and growth. It all started one year where I decided to stop everything in my day and pray for about 15 minutes. It was necessarily an Our Father or Hail Mary. It was more like having a conversation with God. When Lent was over I still continued to do it. Now the wheels in my brain started turning. This was something that spilled over from Lent into my everyday life. Yes it was hard to stop the world for those 15 minutes but after about a week, it all was a part of my routine. Then another year, I decided to pray twice daily. Now that is part of my everyday routine. Then there were a few years, where I didn't cuss (hard sometimes) or I tried to be more supportive, patient, caring, etc. Last year, I decided to not miss Mass during Lent. You see we had just moved in June 2004 and I was still rather new at our Church. I still wasn't sure of Mass schedules, etc. I was mulling it in my head when tragedy struck the week before. There was a major fire at our Church just hours after I left. It was accidental but the Church was severely damaged and we had to celebrate Mass in the school gym. That evening, I made up my mind to worship at Mass every Sunday of Lent even if it meant doing it from a bleacher seat in the gym. I learned a lot on that journey. The most important was it doesn't matter where you celebrate Mass, it is what you get from it. And I got a lot from it. I do have to admit that most of those Sundays were spent praying that the Church would be ready in time for my DD's First Holy Communion on April 30. Well those prayers were answered and the week before her Communion, the parish celebrated a "trial" Mass in Church. It officially re-opened on Saturday, April 30, 2005 in time for my DD to receive Jesus for the first time. I came away with a lot during that time and I just got teary thinking about what my parish went through this time last year. But we came back strong and I realize I don't need a big fancy Church to celebrate my faith. I do know I will never take that for granted ever again.

Now for this year. I have been doing some thinking and this year I have decided to say the Rosary daily. I don't mean just 10 Hail Marys, an Our Father and Glory Be. I plan on doing a Mystery a day (the correct one) along with all the prayers that those beads represent. You see, if you ask me, I will tell you I have a strong devotion to the Blessed Mother. I think I do and I feel I do, but something is missing. Her greatest prayer is missing and that is the Rosary. I hope within a week, I will find my niche for when I will take the time to pray and I hope that when Lent is over, that I will still continue to pray the Rosary and that I come away with a greater devotion to the Blessed Mother.

Besides the Rosary, I also plan to have more patience with my children. Lately, I can honestly say that I lose patience more often than not. I also need to cuss a little less too. LOL We shall see how this all goes.

For today, I am celebrating Fat Tuesday by making homemade pizza. I figure we might as well start Lent with a bang. I made pizza a few weeks ago and everyone loved it. I planned to do this on Saturday but figured today is even more special to make it.

I planned on having a progress of Coffee but unfortunately, I cannot locate my cable to connect from the computer to the camera. Sigh...I think I need the patience with this redo than I do with the kids. So hopefully, it will be located by tonight and tomorrow I should be able to post a picture. I didn't quite meet my Olympic stitching goal of finishing page 1 and getting half of page 6 finished but I was close. I did finish Page 1 and I almost finished half of Page 6. Those coffee beans are my downfall. Other than a little blue, I needed to get those coffee beans finished. It is the fact that each one is made up of like 20 colors and I am talking some of those colors just one or two stitches. So tonight during the start of the Amazing Race, I am hoping to finish up or get close to finishing up the coffee beans.

In remodeling news, DH has all but one wall left to demolish. He took sick over the weekend and just hasn't had the strength to do anything. So I now have three cynderblock walls, windows lined up against a wall and dust and debris all around. He does clean up after he takes something apart but he doesn't get it all. It is just too much right now.

I hope you all enjoy today. I need to keep up with the housework so I can be ready to make my pizzas tonight.