My track record with giving stuff up is rather shady. In college I vowed to give up French fries and Texas toast. Obviously I had been hitting up the Guthrie’s way too much. (The 30 or so pounds that I packed on were a startling indication). Of course, that lasted all of a week until I went to Breezeway where I found French fries and Texas toast on my plate.
I am just not a wasteful person.
Anyway.
We went to eat dinner on Saturday night (Day 18 of the Lenten season) with some friends. Lucy cooked up some good ‘old ribs and baked beans, and Lynn made a cake. It looked like something like this:
And so, my thought process went like this: “Oh, what a pretty cake. Too bad that I have given up sweets for Lent. I am such a good Christian to give up something I love so much. I will surely be rewarded for my diligence. Wait… is that chocolate ganache on top? Oreos in the middle? How sad that I can’t have a piece. Hold up… Lynn is moving to Montgomery in just a few short months! I will never see a cake like this again! I will never have another chance to EAT a cake like this once she is gone! Oh no... I should really take advantage of having her here… along with her cake. Oh, why am I doing this?? I am not Catholic. I don’t even know what Lent is. I am giving up sweets out of selfish ambition and pure vanity...hoping to lose a few pounds and look like Jessica Biel. I am not replacing dessert time with time in the Word. I am not giving my coke money to the starving children in Africa. And I am pretty sure that this Lent deal requires some of that replacement stuff. Lynn needs me to eat a piece of her cake. It might hurt her feelings if I say no. And if I tell her I am observing Lent, she will laugh, because she, too, is Presbyterian. And we all know Presbyterians don’t observe Lent.”And that is the story of how I held out for 18 days sans sweets.
I am a very good at rationalization. Always have been, just ask Dusty.
After the piece of cake, I ate three (or four?) of Lucy’s homemade chocolate chip cookies. They were all crunchy and yummy.
And on Sunday night I had six chocolate chip cookies during the Oscars. The break-and-bake kind.
And on Monday I had another six chocolate chip cookies. (They are gone now, don’t worry).
And yesterday I had some chocolate M&M’s AND some cheesecake ice cream with Oreos from Marble Slab.
Jessica would never do that. She’s such a goodie-goodie.
I have (another) sinus infection, and I have felt like doing nothing. So I have done pretty much just that for the last two days. The puppies followed suit since noone would play with them, and it rained like crazy yesterday. Justin, however, has managed to get the entire house in order while I layed around dozing and watching CSI reruns on Spike tv (didn't know we had it!). Yesterday he went to early church and Sunday School, grocery shopped, made lunch (leftovers for him, PB&J for me), cleaned up the kitchen (with cleaner! I never do that!), vaccuumed the upholstered furniture (I've never done that either), swept and mopped the entire house and then made dinner. A good dinner! We had crab-stuffed flounder, asparagus with parmesan and cheese grits. I am trying to decide if he did all these things so I would feel bad becuase I wasn't doing them or just because he can't sit still... the jury is still out. Either way, I have the best husband in the world.
After beading every room in their rather large house, we hit up Cracker Barrell for some grub (only becuase Moe's closed early...I was so sad). But, there's nothing like lots o' biscuits and jelly to celebrate Fat Tuesday.
Matthew Harrison Baxley 