Dear Friday

First time: home made almond milk

How was your week? Is it just me or do the weeks feel twice as long lately. G and I have started on the whole30 for lent (which is not this year’s motto of the Protestant Church in Germany, which I used to take as an example; they go with ‘you are beautiful’ instead..hmm, at a stretch this might still work.). The main change for us was leaving  out all dairy . One could say we went a bit overboard with dairy once we decided we would be without it for lent… we slowly came off it, not wanting to throw anything away. Thus, Monday (and not Ash Wednesday) was actually our first day without. Curiously enough, cutting out grains from my diet two years ago didn’t nearly give me the cravings I now have for milk, especially in the morning with my coffee. It only started to fade a bit yesterday – let’s see what happens in week 2, then.

G accepted a new job (yes, I know, that was fast – long story though) and found this to solve her shoe problems. Have you tried it?

Slightly late for us, but here is the how to catch a mouse video in case you have this problem. Don’t forget to stay away from sticky traps whatever you do – the mouse is definitely not going to quietly wait on it until you release her/him!

This is going to make you breathe.

Have you cleaned your Mac/PC lately? If not, have a look at this for some tips – and if you have f.lux enabled, don’t disable it in your login items (like yours truly) and wonder why the display still has a yellow tint in the morning…

Are you a highly sensitive person? Then, you probably need to arrange your space differently – do the test.

Do you have anything nice planned for the weekend? We’re going to meet up with our friend J and her little daughter for brunch and we will spend some time on meal planning, because with that sort of choice for food, you need to be prepared. Whatever you do I hope you have a great weekend!!

Lent – to fast or not to fast?

Motto for Lent 2011 - it was me - owning up: 7 weeks without making excuses

Lent – which incidentally doesn’t come from the French word lent for slow, but from the old German/Dutch word for spring: Lenz (though some people seem to think the French were somehow involved here…) is traditionally a time of fasting in the Christian calender – 40 days without. And, essentially for me it’s not only giving something up – it’s also about becoming a better person or at least trying to.

Over the years I have given up many things during lent, although nothing ever touched G’s 40 days fasting. My first fasting lent  is known in my memory as “Nutella lent” – and just for anyone who didn’t know me at that time, I did eat a lot of it (and I mean a lot).

The German Protestant church has issued their 7 weeks without manifesto: “7 weeks without – it was me!” (Sieben Wochen ohne – ich wars!) owning up to our own mistakes and being generous about others’ mistakes. The Catholic Church still has to update their website. They are still on 2010 and, consequently, have no motto to follow this time…

So, now the search begins: what am I going to give up for lent? And what will it be good for?
Sweets? – hmm technically I don’t eat sweets and even if I wanted to eat lots of the type I can have, the result would be a long session in the bathroom. Not good.
Meat – not that I have a lot of it – we happily live 4 days on one chicken – but food in general is not a good idea as I do have a restricted diet anyway which would most probably make my condition worse.
Alcohol? – a no go: I don’t drink as it doesn’t work out with my medication.
Cigarettes? never smoked.
Car? Don’t own one.
Internet? I need it for work – ok, I could cut out reading blogs etc., but that would also effectively mean giving up on our blog and I quite like writing posts.
knitting? You’ve got to be kidding me! It’s either knit – in the few hours in the week that I can actually spare from research and typing essays/lab reports etc. – or poke someone with the knitting needle. So no, not an option.

I kept wandering through things in my mind, what could I give up that would make sense – also in the light of having a chronic illness and chronic pain. I need to paint the picture here: I have to give up most things in life even ones that people generally assume to be ‘normal’. Just a quick wander in the park or an evening out has to be planned and activities have to prioritised. Discipline ranks high at the moment because I want to be able to not only finish my course, but also have a good grade.

So, would giving up on the small amount of sweets I have really make sense or would it make me a totally grumpy person as I feel that I cannot even have the smallest things any more that are supposed to make me feel better or more human? I kept dwelling on this until I had the idea. Grumpiness finally triggered the thought – I was going to give up part ignoring my body – something every person with chronic illness I’ve ever met excels in – and which is, indisputably, a bad habit. So for the 7 weeks of lent I will give up ignoring my body. To make this a realistic task, this will mean that for about 20 minutes every day I will have to do nice things that will actually make me feel better. And what will you do? Are you joining me for Lent?