Two days in, and Lent has been tough.

More specifically, playing on my phone and surfing the web have been tough to kick.

I haven’t played any games, but boy have I wanted to. Oh man! Its been tougher than I expected, but I’ve fought against it and kept clean.

The surfing has not been something I fought terribly hard against, I’ll admit. I gave in pretty easily, and while I could try to justify it by saying that it’s probably the lesser of the two evils, or that I haven’t been surfing “aimlessly”, that doesn’t matter. I made a choice to go without and I need to stick to it.

I won’t drag this on. This is how I am doing, I will try harder. Your prayers are appreciated. Also your comments. Thanks.

Here’s the deal: Lent is the forty days up to Easter. It is tradition that one gives up certain things during lent to better appreciate the price that Christ paid on Easter. People will often give up sweets or coffee. One traditional thing to give up is meat. Typically, its anything excessive or indulgent. Anything that causes you to take your focus away from God.

This year, my list of things that I am giving up looks a little bit different than in past years. Monica and I have been watching what we’re eating, so there isn’t as much indulgent stuff to give up. For more on that, please read my previous post “Playing Catch-Up”.

For this year, I am giving up the following:

1. Meat
2. facebook & Twitter
3. Playing games and surfing the web (mostly on my phone, but also on the computer or tv)
4. Drinking anything but water (this includes coffee, Happy Anniversary Starbucks!)
5. Sweets (I’ve mostly given these up already, but I am going to cut them out completely)

One of the often overlooked aspects of observing Lent is the mini-feast. According to tradition, Sundays are sort-of mini-feast days. This means that we take a break from our fast on Sundays.

What will I be doing instead of surfing and slaying monsters? Well, hopefully I will be reading and praying and spending more time with my family.

I am planning on keeping up with my blog during Lent. Please continue to check back and see how I’m doing.

Are you observing Lent? What are you giving up and why? Let us know in the comments!

The Wellness Action plan went well. It was a challenge, but we got through it. We’ve gotten back to eating all of the foods we gave up but our diet certainly isn’t back to normal.

Monica and I have been using the Lose it! app for our iphones. Its a really handy little app that helps you to lose weight by limiting and keeping track of your calorie consumption. When you sign up, you put in your weight, age, sex, what your goal weight is and how many pounds you want to lose per week. Everyday, you punch in what you eat, and what exercise that you do and the app tells you how many more calories you can consume within your budget that you set when you sign up. It has been really effective. I’ve lost almost twenty three pounds already and Monica has also lost some.

That being said, our diet is somewhat restricted, but in a healthy way. That has certainly affected what I decide to give up for lent.

Three down, more to go.

Today is the fourth day of our media and (specific) food fast. Our detox diet, I guess.

The diet has gone generally well. We are still tired and still want the foods that we’re not supposed to have. But despite being so tired, I feel good. I have gone over to the gym and worked out a couple times since we’ve started the diet. That may be contributing to my good-feeling. Monica also mentioned this morning that I look thinner. Whether I am or not, compliments certainly do a little something for one’s morale.

I haven’t had too much trouble keeping away from twitter and Facebook. It was tough the first day, but has since gotten easier. I am actually considering giving them up long-term. I recently read a blog post by Don Miller where he talked about his giving up of Facebook. Basically he felt that it didn’t add anything to his life. He didn’t need to know that so-and-so was in a relationship or what who’s-his-face had for dinner. As my friend Aaron would say, “Who cares?”. Do I really need this “info”? Is it adding anything to my life? I’m not so sure.

Instead of tweeting and facebooking, I’ve found myself reading more and, as I mentioned before, going to the gym. I’ve also found some more time to share my thoughts in more than 140 characters (you’re reading it). I feel more satisfied with the use of my time, like this is more life-giving than playing Angry Birds. Although, that being said, there’s nothing wrong with a little Angry Birds once in a while.

The big question during this whole detox is what to take away from it. When all is said and done, should I go back to eating wheat or dairy? Should I get back on the twitter bandwagon? I’ve said that I feel good, but what is making me feel good? The working out? The diet? The lack of useless status updates? I guess that’s step two of the process.

So far, the wellness action plan has gone well. I was on a day off today, so in some respects that would have made things easier. Let’s see how it goes tomorrow at work.

I haven’t really gone into much detail of what exactly we’ve given up and for how long. That is, until now.

We’ve given up media, caffeine, soy, corn, eggs, wheat, peanuts, dairy, alcohol and refined sugars. All that for one week and then we will add things back in gradually. It will be interesting to see how this affects our bodies (the media fast, not so much). So far, Monica and I have found that we are more tired than usual and feel hungry between meals. This may be tougher than either of us expected.

For breakfast today, we had Applesauce-sweetened Tahini with Fresh Fruit. This was the most unusual meal today. It was alright. I thought that the Tahini went well with the fruit, but there was just so much of it. As it turned out, there was an issue with the recipe and there wasn’t supposed to be so much Tahini after all. Maybe it’ll be better next time.

For lunch: Two Bean Vegetarian Chili. Quite good. Kind of a standard veggie chili except for the chipotle chili powder and the chunks of buttternut squash.

Dinner was the best meal by far today. Almond Chicken Soup with Sweet Potato, Collards and Ginger. I wasn’t entirely sure how this was going to work, but it was amazing! We are definitely going to have this again before the week is through. I’d love to have it after as well. The only deterrent is the Almond Butter. Man, it’s not cheap stuff!

I haven’t had any issues other than the tiredness and hunger, but Monica has commented on her headache from a lack of coffee. I’m sure that mine will come.

As for the media fast, it’s also going well. I think that this will be toughest for me. Even today, I put Jameson down for a nap, made lunch and then I was lost. What am I supposed to do now? No Angry Birds. No twitter. No Facebook. No aimlessly wandering the Internet. It was tough but I found something to do: I read. Monica isn’t wired the same way as me (as if I needed to tell you that) so the media fast won’t be such an issue for her.

I’ll continue to post here as the week goes on. As for now, I’m gonna grab a beer and watch TV. Oh, wait a second… I guess I’ll read some more over a cup of tea.

I will be blogging in order to share with you how its all going. Stay tuned.

Monica and I were cleaning up around the house today and we found some notebooks that had been used but never really filled out completely. One of the notebooks, I was using as a journal of sorts. I have an even older notebook that I’ve been keeping around that I’ve intended to type up or post on a blog. I haven’t gotten around to that, but I have decided to share with you one of the journal entries from the notebook that I found today. I have posted it here unedited, so that you may enjoy its poor writtenness. Enjoy.

–

Sept 8, 2008

Yesterday, Monica and I went to Starbucks in Parry Sound. We stopped at the bank along the way, and Monica went to Rexall. While at Starbucks, Monica informed me that she had just taken a pregnancy test that she bought at Rexall. The test results were positive. Positive as in Monica is pregnant.

I wasn’t sure how to react and I think Monica was disappointed by how I did react. To be honest, I am still not entirely sure how to react. Yes, I’m excited. What a blessing! But nervous and scared too. What a huge responsibility!

We decided to go for a walk that ended up being a drive to Barrie where we found ourselves looking at baby books in Chapters.

I am excited. I really want to tell my mom. How ecstatic will she be?! I know that its not a good idea to tell people so soon. Its so delicate this early. Things could change.

I think that’s my biggest fear or maybe not fear but reservation. Its so delicate. The test is only 99% accurate. The results were not terribly convincing. The line that indicates you’re pregnant was very light. Could it be a fluke? Monica took two tests yesterday. Both said yes. What are the chances that they’re both wrong? What are the chances that the baby won’t make it? I’m not saying I don’t want the baby – Things are actually really good right now. If there was a time that was good for us to have a baby, it’d be now – But I don’t want to be teased. I don’t want to get psyched and mentally ready, only to be let down. I don’t want to be disappointed.

I feel like I’m not ready. I’m not a good enough husband as it is, what kind of father will I be? I guess that’s just something that I need to work on. I have nine months, right? Shit that’s scary! In nine months I’m going to have a baby. In nine months I am going to be a father. Wow! Actually, its less than nine months. Closer to eight because they count nine months from the last day of Monica’s last period. That would be August 4th-ish and therefore puts the baby due around the middle of May.

Well, I guess here goes nothing.

–

Its hard to believe that that post was written over two years ago. Jameson is now 19 months. Its incredible how quickly time goes by.

I’m not sure that I was ready to have a kid. I’m not sure if there even is a “ready”. I could have read and read all those books and stressed out about whether or not I was ready, but in the end I’d have to roll with the punches.

And I still am.

1. Lose weight (30-40 lbs) by eating
healthier and working out regularly.

2. Be more conscious of my
spending. This means no spontaneous app purchases, no little treats
here and there. I need to really think about the things that I am
putting my money toward. Asking myself: “Do I really NEED this?”.

3. Over a year ago, at the Muskoka Woods staff retreat, the Lord
really placed something on my heart. A simple statement with
no-so-simple implications: That I need to be “A Father like the
Father” and “A Husband like the Son”. During 2011, I’d like to
further explore what that really means and apply it to my life.

4. I’d like to spend less time wasting time on my phone. This may come
naturally as I spend less money on stupid games for my phone, but I
will likely have to be more intentional about my time. Tweeting and
blogging and playing games and texting etc will have to be saved
for more appropriate times.

5. Usually I make a goal to read a certain number of books or paint a certain number of paintings, but
this year I don’t think that’s necessary. I have enough left over
from years past that this year I’d just like to finish what I’ve
started. Books, paintings, reno projects etc. I’d like to see them
all done by the end of the year.

6. I want to find a mentor and a mentee. Is someone I mentor called a mentee?

7. I’d really like to build a
table and chairs for our kitchen. There they are. What do you
think? Can you help me out? Keep me accountable. Pray for me.
Please.