Saturday, February 16, 2013

Lent, little things, life

Howdy!

I hope you all had a wonderful week and enjoyed the various festivities it brought.  The Valentine's decorations at the coop are put away and the Easter ones are out!

In case you were wondering, I am giving something up for Lent this year.  I haven't given anything up the past couple of years for reasons similar to the reason I don't make New Years resolutions:
In my opinion, making a sacrifice/lifestyle change/etc. shouldn't be tied to one particular time of year, season, or event, but rather, it should be a year-round, continuous mind-set and/or goal.  I understand some individuals are motivated by the New Year or making a sacrifice during Lent in honor of what Jesus did, though, and I respect their decisions.  On the other hand, no offense intended, I start to question people's motives in making these sacrifices when it becomes something they make very public and they take on a "woe is me" mentality.  Isn't the point of making the sacrifice in our own lives to remember what Jesus did and draw closer to Him in place of the thing we've given up for 40 days?

Anyway, I'll get off my soap box, and tell you that my Lenten sacrifice is giving up hitting the snooze button in the morning.  It's a (terrible) habit I developed in college and haven't been able to shake since.  I think I've mentioned something about this in earlier posts... maybe...?  Either way, it's just gotten a little out-of-hand, to the point of pushing my morning quiet time (Bible reading, prayer journaling, etc.) to the evening, which in turn affects the rest of my day in various negative ways.  So, after a few years of setting my alarm much earlier than necessary so I could afford the "luxury" of hitting "snooze" for about an hour (on average), I've gone cold turkey.  These first couple days, I've found myself a little resentful in the morning...which is when I take the opportunity to remember why I'm making this change/sacrifice.

Making this public announcement and explaining this to you may seem contrary to my thoughts in the previous paragraph about Lenten sacrifices, but I don't mean contradict myself.  I simply wanted to share this with you all, AND I strongly believe in the power of accountability, so feel free to ask me how it's going at any time.  I'm planning on making this a permanent change (rather than hitting "snooze" 20 times on Easter morning).

A couple other things to share:

When I was getting groceries the other night (something I enjoy very much, as you know), I was witness to the following scene:

A dad was pushing one of the little half-size carts with and his 3 young kiddos (elementary age) trailing along.  One of the little boys was having a hard time keeping up, and as he was rushing to catch up, he glanced my way and asked his dad, "How come we have to have a little cart?"  The dad replied, "Because we don't need to get much."  The boy looked again at my cart and said (somewhat to himself) in passing, "Well...she has a big one!"  They were in the refrigerated section purchasing little bottles of chocolate and strawberry milk.  Apparently, this was a big deal, and the kids were soooo excited.  As their dad was pulling out a bigger bottle for himself, the little girl exclaimed, "How come you get a big one?!"  He replied, "Am I bigger than you?"  I encountered them, again, in the frozen section while they were picking out ice cream.  The kids kept going on about all the fun treats they were getting.  I don't know what the occasion was, but it was so refreshing to see kids excited about and appreciative of the "little things."

Remember my post about all my duties as a "music librarian" and all the updates to the list, since then?  (Here's a link to that post, in case you need a refresher.)  Well, I was feeding the fish the other day, and thought I'd document it a bit for those of you who might not know exactly what this entails:
This is just a snack for these discus fish - they got a full meal later in the day.  Yes, you're seeing a shot glass with an eye-dropper.  The glass contains previously frozen blood worms and brine shrimp (little tiny, tiny shrimp...haha - that seems incredibly redundant, but really - they're so tiny) thawed in a little water.  These fish and their 10+ friends gather around for drops of this tasty concoction as I squeeze it into the water with the eye-dropper.  These particular discus are about 4-5 inches in diameter.  We have another tank in the office with ones that started as babies (I guess all of them started as babies, but I actually got to see these in their smaller state), and it's been fun to watch them grow!  I think I've become so accustomed to the beautiful tropical fish I get to see on a regular basis that I forget to appreciate them.  Thanks to my boss for sharing this hobby with the rest of us.  ☺
Enjoy the rest of the weekend and stay warm!

-Kensy

Favorites of the day:
checking things off my to-do list
trimming Charlie's claws (ha - NOT!  It's nice to have a less-destructive kitty, though.)
Downy Unstopables
chick flicks

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