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Fat Tuesday and Preparing for Lent

Fat Tuesday and Preparing for Lent

Last updated on: February 9, 2016 at 5:25 pm by Leticia Adams

Fat Tuesday and Preparing for Lent 2016-02-09T17:25:55-05:00 Leticia Adams

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Tomorrow is Ask Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. I don’t know if you have heard or not, but I suck at Lent. I mean, really suck at it. I am just keepin’ it real here, I feel like my entire past 3 years has been one long Lent so at this point it would be much more of a sacrifice to have 40 days of not having a crisis pop up.

I have my reading materials ready. A few really good books that I am reviewing for the blog and then Ralph Martin’s Fulfillment of All Desire, which I always try to read for Lent but never finish. Why? Because I am always on Facebook, that’s why.

That leads me to what I’m doing for Lent. I am not giving up Social Media – hello! I have a blog and other writing projects going on plus it’s the primaries- but what I am doing is getting some tools in place so that I am not sucked into threads arguing with strangers who walk away thinking that I am a huge bitch, when I should be writing. Just look at the sentence! It’s obvious that I need to learn how to grammar.

I signed up for Hootsuite, Evernote and Sunrise so that I can try and gain some control over my life again. With Hootsuite, I can see my Twitter timeline which has all of my news and articles and then post to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at the same time or one at a time, but I don’t see my newsfeed at all. That saves so much time for me since I fall easily to the tempation of a debate thread. This way I can go on Facebook and look at my newsfeed when I want. I’ve set up times to do that at the end of the day. By then I am tired and if I waste the rest of my day arguing with people it’s only an hour, not 9 hours. Sunrise lets me merge all my calendars and Facebook events in one place. I also finally started using my Outlook for email. I still don’t really know how exactly to utilize it, but I am going to learn! All of these things will help me to keep up but will keep me from losing my life into the sink hole that Social Media is for me.

Facebook is my weakness. I want to keep up with everyone but really I am only one person. I made Facebook lists for my friends, family and co-workers so that when I do check Facebook I can go to the list’s feed first and keep up with those closest to me. It is nothing personal to anyone who reads my blog or knows me from my online life for that last few years, it is only about getting some order to my life.

I am also going to watch what I eat and takes walks with my dog. Combined, what I am really doing for Lent is learning some self-control. I have none.

I had to walk away from a couple of things because I realized that I am half assing almost everything in my life right now and that means that I am not doing the one thing that I should be doing: writing and telling my story.

My car broke down, we have a new grandbaby coming any day now and we have a few other bills that are due three weeks ago and need to be paid ASAP. It’s time for me to learn to focus and do what it is God has gifted me to do.

There are several ways that you can help me out if you would like to.

1. Prayers. This is the best way to help. God is always faithful and He answers prayers. I know this, even if I forget sometimes in a panic.

2. You can always convince your parish to let me visit and speak there. Just click on my speaking page for more information. My speaking fee in negotiable and it would really help me support my family. And if I am at your parish then I can see and meet you in real life!

3. You can click on the donation button on my side bar and PayPal us a few bucks. We are $2,500 in the hole right now with my car being most of that. Fixing my car is the best option because I can’t afford payment on another car and because we have already fixed a lot of things on it, so we know that it’s a good car once this gets fixed.

4. I also set up a YouCaring page that you can share and donate to.

I am so thankful for any help that anyone gives us. There are personal things that I can’t just blab about on a public blog, so I am humbled that anyone would take a leap of faith and help.

I don’t want to end with all that though. The good news is that my book proposal is off to editors! Please pray for this to go well and my memoir will be published soon. I am so excited and really need to get to work. I have the first draft done but I have learned so much since finishing it that I am just going to start over. I am so excited!

Here we go! Lent is here, but first let’s eat some cake. Happy Fat Tuesday ya’ll!

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