I am far more interested in Lent beginning than I am in Valentine's Day...haha. Although, many thanks to my mother who came over and did a craft with all 3 of my kids on Sunday for Valentine's Day, AND gave me some cute hearts to hang in my dining room. I do like the decorating part, just not-so-much the "making the decorations myself while pregnant" part, or the part where it's a made-up holiday revolving around spending lots of money on something frivolous and excessive, or a group date with the rest of America...nah. Pass. :)
Anyway, back to Lent. We've got our usual books and things we'll go through as a family during dinner, but this year, similar to last year, we're doing 2 bigger things:
1. The 40 bags in 40 days Lent challenge
The premise of this Lent event is simple: get rid of excess and clutter in your life during Lent, and donate everything to a charity rather than trying to make money for yourself out of the eliminating. The second part is actually very helpful for me, because I sometimes may delay getting rid of something because I know I *could* sell it for some money if I just took the time and energy to do it, but that time and energy is in such high demand these days (especially while pregnant) that I often just end up keeping the item in question. Jonas and I both loved doing this last year, but granted I wasn't pregnant last year so we'll see how much my energy keeps up with my goals here. Jonas also isn't quite sure we have enough stuff to fill up 40 bags (I always use garbage bags, because...go big or go home, right???), but I'm guessing we'll do JUST fine...haha.
2. A media fast every weekend (adults computers, TVs and phones included *cough*)
This is a totally non-revolutionary concept, of course, and I know many people do this regularly, but we don't, so we want to try to be intentional about it this year. We chose the weekends particularly because that will have the most impact on us as a family unit, not just individually. Time spent NOT on any device will be intentionally spent together as a family, maybe even doing some form of service...yet to be determined. Jonas and I will still answer our phones and text messages, we just won't be using any form of technology for entertainment. And for the most part, emails will go unanswered from Friday night to Monday morning (Jonas is already way better at that one than I am).
So, what about you? Doing anything for Lent this year? Want to join us in some of these ideas? :)
