oh, yes, lent

today marks the beginning of lent. oh, yes. lent.

every year since i can remember, my grandmother, a woman who sends off checks of $10 or $20 to various religious orders whenever whatever thing she'd asked their patron for comes true. like... she found the keys she'd asked st. anthony to help her find (dear st. anthony, please come around, something is lost and cannot be found) or i graduate from college (thanks to st. rita, patron saint of hopeless cases, of course, not that i was one class away after taking a semester off!) and still buys novenas and masses and confesses at 78, gives up whalemeat and watermelon for lent. whalemeat. and watermelon. as a child, i was required to REPORT on my lenten sacrifice every evening at dinner. my parents have since been excommunicated for attending a church that has a woman priest.

i do exactly jack shit for lent now. know why? cause i'm not catholic.

now, i think it's great that lent provides a convenient stretch of time for other people to challenge themselves, but man, that shit is FRAUGHT around here. i can't do it.

which is okay.

but easter is just six and a half weeks away, and i'd be lying if i said i didn't have a goal. dudes, i want to go to easter dinner, with my salted meat pies and lamb cakes, to dive into a pan of my grandmother-in-law's homemade pierogies, wearing size 12 pants... or smaller.

how hard can that be? i'll be 5 weeks into spinning by then. and i'll be working out with bk for... 8 weeks by then? damn. i'll be tracking my calories & nutrients. pushing my water. i can do it, right?

yesterday was better than i've been. aside from forgetting my hot dogs (if you don't know about the 45 calorie hebrew national hot dogs, you MUST go get them now.) i did okaaaay. well, not great. i also had a lindor truffle-- dark chocolate-- before my workout (78), two wedges of homemade scallion pancake before dinner (like 120) and a tiny wedge of the 8" chocolate chipper i made for my husband (50? it was tiny). not awesome. no green check. but better.

so, can i say this? i look pretty great in clothes. i mean, i know how to dress myself well, and now that i'm down to a medium top and size 14 pants, not quite noticeably huge anymore, i can pull off normal. but spring & summer are coming (aren't they??) and i might want to wear... capris. yeah, that's right, i can't even pull off capris. because my legs are enormous. or SKIRTS or DRESSES. (like that size 8 j. crew number!) i'm sure that toning up is going to help, but i have to lose 20 more pounds. the floppy bits are... well, they're really upsetting me. why am i not losing??