Some ideas for Lent

I wanted to write about some ideas I've been tossing around in my head about how to approach Lent this year. To be honest, although I was born and raised Christian, I have never really done anything special during Lent. I've tried, halfheartedly, to give something up a few times. In the past year or so I read somewhere of doing the opposite of giving something up and I liked that idea. Basically, the idea is that instead of NOT doing something, you try to DO something you don't normally do. So I've been ruminating on that for a while and last night I came up with what I want to do. I'm really excited about it!

Here's the background before I tell you my idea. I am TERRIBLE about staying in touch with people when I change jobs or move to a new place. I mean, truly TERRIBLE. I am also TERRIBLE about writing thank-you cards. It's embarrassing to admit, but I just really don't do it very often. I always THINK about doing it, but I don't. So............I was thinking about all the women who have been important to me at different times in my life and I decided to take time EACH DAY during Lent to write a card to one of those women, telling them what impact they've had on me. I just got done jotting down a list of names and am up to 36 so far. I am planning to make some special handmade cards that I will use and there will be a handmade bookmark in each card along with an individualized hand-written message from me. That way, the recipient will have something to keep to remind them of the impact they've had on me. I already have my card idea picked out and am hoping to make up a sample tonight. I'll post it soon.

My other ideas for myself for Lent are trying to spend at least 10 minutes a day in silent prayer/meditation and restricting myself from using the computer until after 9:00 p.m. at night. That will be hard. Although I do the majority of my blog writing and reading after the boys are in bed, I DO sneak over to the computer quite a bit to check email and see if anyone is leaving me comments on the blog. So..........I am going to try to scale back on that.

If you have any ideas for Lent either for yourself or your children, I'd love to hear about them. Many of you left me such thoughtful comments to my "Gentlewoman" post. I so appreciated reading and learning from them. My sincere thanks to you for taking the time to write.

Oh........I DO have an idea of something I want to do with the boys during Lent, but I will write more about that later. Right now my little boy has gotten up from his nap and wants to go play outside.