Oatmeal Chronicles

Today I switched to the Scott's Porrage Oats and had a much easier time of it. I poured a dash of cream over and put some yummy brown sugar on top. Better.
Does anyone care about this?

bleahhhhh

Oh GAWD oatmeal is just gross.
I mean, Happy Ash Wednesday!!

oatmeal, shmoatmeal...

Right, so here comes Lent and I am this year flummoxed as to how to mark it in my life. My hope to make the 9:00 Mass at my parish won't work, due to pre-9 traffic... I'd have to leave over an hour beforehand, and that would mean I wouldn't be able to walk in the morning... and I DO need to do some walking. I've decided to start downloading the daily Liturgy of the Hours and the daily readings onto my ipod and walk to the strains of Bible-ness every morning... or so.But that's not what I asked you all hear to talk about.
I thought that a good new habit to take on for Lent would be to eat OATMEAL for breakfast every day... or so. We have two different types of oatment in our house to try- one is rolled Scottish Porage oats (from Scotland!) and the other is steel-cut Irish oatmeal.












The steel cut, which is supposed to be better for you because it's less processed, takes twice as long to cook- but it has a less mushy texture than the rolled Scott's, which I think is the same kind of thing as Quick Quaker oats.
The thing is, I have never liked oatmeal. Blech. That's why it's such a good penitential act for me for Lent. But it's supposed to be so good for me... So, I'm going to take a stab at it. Today I put brown sugar and chocolate chips in it, but I will prob. be fine with just some brown sugar or a touch of honey. We'll see.

Here comes Lent

Tonight at our Faith Festival we study the upcoming (and soon!) seasons of Lent and Easter. This year Lent could be a completely different experience for me. I've been in a Lent rut for the past several years, identifying closely with Jesus' suffering because I was suffering for my ministry, too. I have, as my Lenten practice, walked to daily Mass, and changed some dietary something. My Lenten Slogan each year was "He DIED for me, I'll DIET for him".
But this year, I'm not so much suffering. How are you supposed to do Lent while being all happy and stuff? My new schedule means going in to work earlier, which means my walk to church is out. I will miss that discipline- I liked walking through the snow and ice at the beginning of the season and knowing that by Easter, grass would be greening. Of course, this year with Lent starting so early, it probably won't be very spring-like when Easter rolls around anyway. I do want to continue with daily Mass, but going to my parish at 9 means leaving by 8:30 and with morning traffic, that really should be 8:00. That's out. There's a 12:15 Mass down the street from my parish, but I've been once and it was pretty dreadful. Maybe that'll just have to be my penance. Maybe I'll drive to the 9:00 here in town, then keep on driving to work. Yeah, that'll work...
But I do want to do something dietary, and not just because I'm feeling a bit blimpy (as I always do this time of year) but because I feel so joyful and thankful, I want to show my gratitude by being a better steward of the life and body God has given me. We'll see.
When I was young I used to give up obscure things like Orange American Cheese, or Macadamia Nuts, or something like that- easily avoidable. In college I tried giving up soda every year, and failed miserably every year. Later on in life, I gave up fried foods and found Fridays to be fairly tricky- unfried fish at that time was a bit out of my price range and too much tuna fish is just... too much.
So, we'll see. And, we'll see how it feels to sacrifice from a place of non-suffering. Should be interesting...