Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Giving Things Up


Happy Smudge Day!
Originally uploaded by LarimdaME.
In honor of today, I encourage you to check out and enjoy the Ash Wednesday tag on Flickr.

As the peeps (ha. my fingers just typed poops. sorry peeps.) who've read my bloggerel for a while know, I'm a sucker for lent and/or any short-time very focused giving up of things.

A couple of days ago my body said "no more alcohol!" and I decided that I needed to take a little break (I'd totally gotten into a very daily habit of a glass or two of wine; sometimes three. I'm all for wine, but probably not every damn day).

Just today, going through my Flickr contact photos I realized that it was the first day of lent. While my abstinence started a couple of days ago, I still marvel at how my psyche was naturally looking for something to give up temporarily. :)

Things I have temporarily and purposefully given up in the past:
  • Eating cheese
  • Drinking caffeine
  • Eating wheat (very hard!)
  • Adding salt
  • Eating meat (that one lasted a long time)
  • Saying "I'm sorry" (I say it way too much)
  • Drinking soda
  • Buying books (for two years)

7 comments:

.5 of babygrand said...

yes! I accidentally became a vegetarian ....er ..18 years ago?... by giving up meat for Lent.

I'd like to augment your temp. sessation list with the time you gave up reading as a part of a week (or weeks?) of giving up things I thought were impossible at the time but really are pattern based addictions. Do you recall what the others were?

emdot said...

I forgot about that. Or maybe I blocked it out? I found that to be one of the very hardest things I ever gave up.

In the post I said I gave up buying books for two years (different from the one you brought up, but reminded me), that was so I would read all of the books I already had but hadn't read. In two years I read more than 80% of them.

I just told 7s about the non-reading week and he said "did you find yourself reading the back of cereal boxes?" and I said "YES!" I love how he intuitively went there. :)

Udge said...

I started out aghast and appalled at the thought of no books for two whole years, but your reply makes it all clear. I too have a high proportion of unreads on my shelves.

Esther said...

i recently gave up the sweet nectar that is caffeine (i.e. Dr. Pepper), and all sodas, and i can already feel the difference. it's still effing hard, though.

emdot said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
emdot said...

Calvo -- I feel a little bad: I wasn't I an influence on your stint of "toe out of veganism"? I mean, I know I wasn't there, but it was directly after you visited. Pizza? Snickers? Something like that?

Meanwhile... the ease in which you do your vegan business is impressive. :)

emdot said...

edge, as noted above, one of my most poorly kept "give ups" was not reading for a week. I was pretty miserable at it. And the only reason I did it was because I was reading The Artists Way. I think week 4 is "don't read for a week." And though I have really, really, REALLY wanted to do that book again... I just can't go through the no reading thing again.

Esther, I totally know what you mean. While I haven't given up sugar I have greatly decreased my sugar in take. And I mean greatly.

The other day I was at a work function and there were donuts and long story short, I succumbed (because I am weak to the donut). Anyway, about 20 minutes later (maybe not even that long) I wanted to die and crawl out of my skin. My heart was racing. My mind was racing. My skin was calling, "crawl out, crawl out."

I'm pretty sure I shouldn't eat donuts again.