Guilty Pleasures

Full Disclosure: I've already had more than my share of Mardi Gras treats...starting last Friday. The housekeeper at my job brought in paczki...and gave me my own box. Those Polish pastries were gone even before I started laundry or dishes or checked my email. Chicago's large Polish population means we get Fat Thursday and Fat Tuesday, and I'm not complaining.

Today I made sure to indulge again. I love getting in the true spirit of the season. How did I indulge? Why, in all my guilty pleasures of course.

Mindless Snacking

Is that a bag of chips I see? Are there bowls of candy on the counter? How did this box of cookies get in my room? I snack. All. Day. Long. Somewhere there's a happy medium between a strict 3-meal-a-day policy and my preference for grazing. This Lent, I'm searching for a sweet spot of intentional eating. (It helps that March is Nutrition Month.) Traditionally, Ash Wednesday is a day of fasting. I wouldn't recommend it for everyone, but I personally want to mark the beginning of Lent with a fast. Then I'll be eating intentionally until Easter.

Adverbs

This is a writing guilty pleasure. I lean on adverbs a lot. Usually there's a more concise verb I could use rather than modifying the one I first think of. I'm trying to tighten up my creative writing, and adverbs (along with unnecessary adjectives--think "green grass" or "hot sun") should be the first to go. It's just, adverbs can be so fun! My fiction writing is taking a rest this month thanks to all the other activities I have planned, but I'm still blog writing, and practice makes better!

Clutter

There's nothing I love more than making food and letting my dishes sit unwashed. I'm pretty sure this comes from the fact I have to wash dishes (sometimes a LOT of dishes) every day at work (although last year I had a different excuse...), so the last thing I want to do is come home and wash more. I want to eat and veg and not clean up after myself after a day of cleaning up after other people. That attitude isn't fair to my roommates, though, so I try to do them as soon as I can, or at the very least rinse them and organize them so they are easy to do the next morning.

Whining

I love to whine. And complain. And be snarky. My goal is to do so without being a Debbie Downer. I like to think my whining is funny. It's probably not, at least not all the time, but people who are in constant good moods unsettle me. I don't trust them. Today I'm getting out all my whine, and starting tomorrow I'm going to keep my snark to myself. I won't become Little Miss Sunshine, but I want to be more genuine. I will have bad days, but I don't have to complain about them. I can just let them be what they are. This will be my toughest challenge, and one that might take more than six weeks of Lent to work through.

---

What are your guilty pleasures? Are you giving up anything for Lent (or are you still working on New Year's Resolutions)?