Top of the muffin to ya! Week 8

In just two short days, a Catholic you know might whisper sweet nothings to a bag of M&Ms, look forlornly at a glass of wine or tie themselves to a chair to keep from checking their Facebook page.

Without fail, they will refrain.

Yes, yes, y'all. Lent begins on Wednesday.

I'm giving up the usual - sweets. No cookies, no candy, no cake, no anything else that, midway through the 40 days, I decide I might try to use as a substitute. Like peanut butter and jelly in excess. I've almost done it and I know it when I see it.

The first few days are rough.  Not because I'm actually thinking of cheating. . . but because I simply forget (which speaks volumes about what I eat without thinking about it).

Oh, the poor people around me during Lent. . . My unintentional lapses have resulted in spitting out chewed food (very attractive. very.) and actually swallowing a forbidden item then, in realization, yelling, "Oh my Gawd!" to the confusion and shock of bystanders.

Lent drums up interest.  People ask questions about Catholicism and there's always someone to look out for me and keep me on the straight and narrow.

To this day, when I'm torn over an item and wondering, "Can I eat this?," I hear my childhood friend Misty's syrupy Southern voice yell the same words she did across the high school softball field as she saw me poised to pop a piece of sugary, ballpark bubblegum into my mouth: "Court! You're lenting!"

I wish I heard Misty's voice every single day of the year instead of just 40 days.

Lent isn't about a diet, which is why I hesitated to even write about it here. It's about suffering & sacrifice & an effort to change bad ways forever, which is why I did decide to write about it.

For the next 40 days, I'll be reflecting on a permanent life change and hopefully not spitting out too many half-chewed peppermints in public.

Oh. And no loss this week, after a couple unfortunate run-ins with a Pyrex of banana pudding.