Doing Mardi Gras My Way

If you're a Catholic mommyfolk like myself, it's The Day.

Mardi Gras.

While I don't take to all that craziness down in New Orleans, here's what's left of the bag of Hershey's Kisses that I picked up for free last week at CVS:

I did give the wee monkeys a few of them. I'm not a complete glutton, but I should point out that they're not the ones facing six weeks without their fave alternate fuel source: chocolate.

Coffee is my primary fuel source, coffee and randomly mumbled discussions with God as I face another challenging day of tantrums, conflicting schedules, and muddy doggie feet. Today, I asked Him if He really needed to send us thunderstorms in January. Thunderstorms with lightning. We've had so much rain today, I could make money hand over fist selling tickets to my backyard as a real, live, straight-from-DreamWorks replica of Shrek's swamp.

So as the end of Mardi Gras approaches, I've been scarfing down chocolate with the hopes that I'd be glad to say goodbye to Hershey, Mars, and Godiva after getting sick of eating it.

It didn't work.

This isn't the only treat I forgo during Lent, the season before Easter when Jesus spent his forty days in the desert praying and fasting. I give up all sweets: desserts, cookies, candy, chocolate.

I do this every year, and it does exactly what it's supposed to do: help me refocus my mind on what my dear Jesus did for all of us. Suffer and die, so that we may have Life with Him. Lent isn't about punishing yourself; it's about replacing something you enjoy with a moment of reflection and prayer.

And boy, do I enjoy all things SUGAR.

Which means the next forty days will bring many many more mumbles to Heaven from Casa de Monkeys.

WM