Thursday, February 26, 2009

Au revoir, chocolat...

Farewell, cookies...

Adios, all kinds of sweets...


I'm giving you up for Lent. Yes, 'tis the season, and although I'm not a particularly religious person, I do try each year to give up something for Lent. This year it's sweets and ~ gasp! ~ Facebook. Forty days without chocolate, cookies, cake, granola bars, pudding, candy, suckers, ice cream... and Facebook. Can I do it? Just watch me.
Here's my reasoning: I think I indulge far too often in sweets, sometimes eating them instead of regular food at mealtime, when I'm home alone. Isn't that terrible? I will eat a bowl of ice cream (fat free, of course) for dinner. Bad bad bad. Plus, some of the students at school bring me chocolate quite regularly and, because it's a gift, I feel compelled to EAT IT! It would be rude of me to refuse. I think this will not only be a good exercise in self-control and moderation, but also will help with the Diet Challenge. (Fingers crossed.) Apparently, if you replace sweets with healthy food, your body will eventually start to crave the healthy food instead of the sweets. (Fingers crossed again.)
As for Facebook, well, it was simply taking up too much of my time and I found myself getting altogether too interested in what other people are doing. Through Facebook, I've reconnected with people I haven't seen for 20-plus years. To be honest, I hadn't even thought about most of them until they found me (or I found them) on FB. I think it's time for a break from worrying about the same stupid things I worried about in high school. Oh, who cares if so-and-so talks to her more than me, or if my grade 9 boyfriend hasn't returned my poke. Gawd! It's all so dumb! A self-imposed moratorium on Facebook will be good for me, refreshing even. (And if I really need to know what's going on, the OnlyChild will tell me.)
I will not, however, be giving up any blog time. The jury is in, folks, and it is felt unanimously that we bloggers are most definitely NOT a bunch of self-centred narcissists; rather, we are a community of people who enjoy each other's cyber-company and love to talk about our shared passions. So there! That's a relief, considering this whole post has been about ME (again).
I'm off to Teachers' Convention today and tomorrow. Two days of professional development sessions about topics such as Youth and Drugs, Human Slavery, Math and Puppets (?), Classroom Management, No-Marks Assessment (is that even possible?). My friend Sandi and I are going to a writing session this morning. Hopefully it will be worthwhile. This afternoon, I have a "Smart Board" workshop. Yeah, tons of laughs! But, we get to spend a couple of days downtown and eat real lunches in restaurants with other adults and take public transit (because parking downtown is a nightmare), so it will be a novelty. After years of these conventions, I'm becoming a bit jaded, but I'm professionally obligated to attend so I shall.
Have a great day... it's almost the weekend!

I just wanted to add this: Right now, it's -32 degrees celsius. I found a converter online so for all you American gals, that's MINUS 25.6 degrees fahrenheit. As we say up here in the Great White North, Cold enough for ya?

7 comments:

PunkiePie (Jen) said...

Okay #1...WAAAAAY too cold for me!

Glad to hear that blogging is not on your Lent List. Good luck to you in the next 40 days! I've given up "giving up" since I stopped attending catholic school and wasn't forced to do it. But maybe it would be a good thing to try... NAH! I would never stick to it. I would forget. Like forgetting "No Meat" Fridays during Lent.

Who makes up these rules?!

Thimbleanna said...

Oh Brrrr! And thank goodness you're not giving up the blog. We've lost too many bloggers to facebook. But sweets??? You're looking at the shame of eating ice cream for dinner all wrong! You should be commended -- if you ate dinner AND ice cream, think of all the calories you'd be taking in. Way to Diet!!!!

Pam said...

Goodness, that sounds very very very cold.

Ah, Smartboards. Actually, they're rather fun once you get the hang of them.

Stacy said...

Well I'm just glad you aren't giving up your blog because I love reading your posts!

-32 degrees??? I can't imagine. Of course, here in California we start complaining if the temp dips below 50.

Sara said...

It just dawned on me that you are in Alberta - are you close to Edmonton? I used to have a pen-pal from Edmonton from the time I was 7 or 8 until she married - we were in our 20s then.

Oh, have fun at the conference! At least if will be fun to eat at a place nicer than the cafeteria.

I've got that snacking thing going too...need to stop it...

Quilter Going Bananas said...

It's just as cold here, I think you sent it my way, thanks a lot, LOL Like the others have said I'm glad you're not giving up blogging for Lent. But Chocolate and other sweets? Yikes! that'll be tough but maybe good for your "fad diet" hopefully!

Red Geranium Cottage said...

Well you best not be giving up your blog. I am just sayin!!!!!!!! Now the sugar you can give that up if you wanna but you cant give us up. That would just be wrong.