Giving Up and Adding In

Lent (the 40 days, plus Sundays, leading up to Easter) begins today. I grew up in a Baptist church, yet we still recognized the season of Lent and had an Ash Wednesday service. I remember being surprised when I met Nick at college and he didn’t really know what either of those were (he had also grown up Baptist), and the concept of giving something up for the Lent season was foreign to him. I had no idea my parents and church were branching out so much by doing those things, but I am so grateful they did!

I still remember the year our family gave up TV for all of Lent… we did a LOT of puzzles that year – the most memorable ones being a picture of hundreds of buttons, and a sweet 3-D puzzle of the White House!

Nick and I freely talk about Lent with and around the kids, and the boys have asked several times this week (and even this morning) if we’ll go to the kid-friendly Ash Wednesday service tonight at our church. They haven’t asked yet if they can fast from something, but we discuss what we (Nick and myself) are giving up and why.

Giving Up 

Anyway, all that to say I’ve made a decision about this year! This year I’ll be kicking the soda (specifically Diet Coke) habit that has resurfaced and grown too much in recent years. It’s terrible for me, and yet I’ve somehow found myself back in the “craving” it stage I was in 6 or 7 years ago.

Adding In 

Lately I’ve been really sad about my lack of blogging. I started this blog 8 years ago for two main reasons – keeping our family back home connected and in the know, and also as a digital journal of sorts. In the last couple of years, I’ve hardly blogged anything, and while Facebook is great for going back and looking at pictures, it’s terrible for going back and seeing what funny things my kids said or did on a certain day. We won’t even get into how little I take “real” pictures of my own kids – almost everything is done with my cell phone (and I don’t have a great phone, with a great camera).

Do you know what the main reason was behind me dropping the blogging?

I was becoming too much of a perfectionist with the pictures I posted on here! I figured if I was now a photographer, with a Kansas City portrait studio, I better be posting top notch photos here on my personal blog too. Then I’d become so bogged down with prepping and polishing those photos, that they would pile up, and pile up, and pile up. Before I knew it, I wasn’t blogging anything anymore. Terrible!

So here’s my plan – during Lent I’ll be blogging DAILY! The pictures won’t have to be perfect, and neither will the text, because I am an imperfect person, and that’s ok.

It might be just one picture with a quick caption.

Like the time last Saturday that Chase made his first basket during a basketball game!

It might be a quick conversation I had with one of the kids that made me laugh (or cry). Like this one from this morning….

Me, muttering in the car line: Why do people have to act like such idiots?

Lily, laughing: They aren’t acting like kitties, Mommy! You so silly! Kitties!

It might be a long, rambling post (like this one). Daily though, it’s gonna happen. And I’ll be trying to take more pictures with my actual camera, because my kids deserve pretty pictures too 😉 Like this one I took of Lily just 30 minutes ago!

Pretty much couldn’t believe it when I said “Lily, can I take a quick picture of you?” and she turned and smiled so sweetly for me!

Anyway, thanks for coming along on the journey, and being gracious to an imperfect me!