Whoops! It’s Lent Already!

Easter is early this year, which means so is Lent. And, frankly, between the challenge of wrestling two children to silence in church and an unyielding winter season, we’ve fallen off the “go to church every Sunday” bandwagon lately. In fact, I don’t even think our church had an Ash Wednesday service this week, as the two feet of snow we got on Wednesday morning shut down nearly every church in Southeastern Iowa that day.

Usually, we have most of February to discern a proper Lenten sacrifice, but this time, whammo! It’s at our doorstep, demanding our attention before I could even remember to cook fish for dinner on Friday. So, I filtered through my typical list: eat better, go to bed earlier, be more prepared for school, clean the house more, appreciate Dennis more often…

But quite quickly, I recognized my latest character flaw that needs to be renounced this year: complaining. Perhaps it’s the weather, perhaps it’s my homesickness, but I’ve become something of a Negative Nellie as of late. I told Dennis about my forfeiture, but within ten minutes, he reminded me that I was already complaining again. OK, OK, perhaps I should set some more realistic parameters. I will still complain about Dennis (primarily TO Dennis) – it is my wifely duty after all. ;-)

Specifically, my sacrifice is to cease complaining about Iowa. Iowa weather, Iowa people, lacking Iowa activities, Iowa’s uninhabitability, Iowa liberalism, Iowa tee shirts, University of Iowa students, Iowa gas prices, Iowa property taxes, Iowa Public Works (namely, the people who drive around giving citations to every household that doesn’t scrape every speck of ice and snow off their sidewalk within 24 hours of a snow storm – this, of course, as they drive on the ice-packed, unplowed roads the city is responsible for maintaining. Fear not, we’ve only earned a warning this season.). You get my drift – all things Iowa. (By the way, this post is not a complaint – simply an explanation of the scope of my pledge.)

Nope, starting now, neary a negative utterance from me. The anticipation of our trip to California and the week during Lent that we will actually be in California should make this effort more feasible. Perhaps by March 24th (the day after Easter and the end of Lent), spring will be here, and there will be no need for complaining. There are about two tolerable weeks each spring here. Wait was that a complaint? OK… starting now.