40 Days and 40 Nights Come to An End

Today, the Christian community is celebrating Easter, and we are in the midst of the Jewish Passover.

My atheist friends, whom I love dearly, like to refer to this day as Zombie Jesus Day.  But, really...it is kinda like Jesus became a zombie...though minus wanting to eat our brains and stuff.

I do miss having an Easter celebration with my family.  We would have tons of Filipino food, family would be over, and we'd have a good ol' Easter Egg Hunt.  Some of the plastic eggs would even have dollar bills inside them!  Great way to bribe children into Christianity!  Shoot, I'd believe in Zombie Jesus Day, too, if it meant that I'd get chocolate and money.

But, I digress.

This post is for me to recount how I've dealt with my Lent Challenge.

Here's what I posted back in February:

What I'm giving up:
Using any of my credit cards (really, it's just my Old Navy, Victoria's Secret, Best Buy, and Capital One cards...only....).  I've done it once, and I can do it again!!!  I realistically can't say that I won't purchase anything new, but I will not use my credit cards!

What I'm taking on:

I talked a little bit about this in a previous post, but I will add one more days of movement.  With me being away in California for the past 2 weeks, I haven't really been able to devote any time to working out.  Not to mention that I really ate like I was on vacation (pho 2x, pupusas, Korean BBQ, Jack in the Box, In N Out, Filipino food.....ya.....).  Now that I'm back in Boston and hopefully back to a regular routine, it's time to up my cardio!

Giving Up Ain't So Hard to Do
Like I said above, I've already given up using my credit cards before, so this wasn't so difficult.  I must say, though, I get a TON of emails, catalogs, and other temptations from those above categories.  So, the challenge was never too far from my mind.

Luckily, I didn't have any emergencies that required the use of my credit card, though there was a small scare with Yoni's eye (she just bumped her head on something as she was tearing back and forth through the apartment).  Also, instead of thinking about purchasing new clothes, I've been really trying to evaluate all the items in my ridiculously overflowing closet.

I'm still working on getting rid of clothes.  Weirdly, I'm able to identify what I haven't worn in the past winter season; yet, I'm still so unfamiliar with the varieties of winters that I get hesitant about discarding certain items.  I'm sure it's just whatever hang ups I have about getting rid of stuff, but at least I'm conscious of it.

Getting Moving
For the entire month of March, I attended 2 belly dance classes, vinyasa yoga, and pilates every week.  Though I was sick one weekend, I managed to only miss my belly dance classes (all the spinning around would have made me super dizzy).

There were a couple of days when I would do some cardio, or I would do some walking around the city, or I took belly dance workshops.  But I was really active throughout those 40 days.

I am loving the pace that I'm at!  I would love to keep doing this much activity, and maybe add a little more.  There's one yoga class that I thoroughly enjoy, which is a mix of yoga and pilates, but it doesn't always fit into my schedule.  When it does, I will plan on attending it.

Now that the sun and warmth is (relatively) gracing the Northeast, I'm so excited to add bicycling back into my routine.  I would definitely like to try to bike around the city much more before Winter is upon us again.  Hopefully, I can find a pool that I can swim laps in this summer, too.

Here comes the sun...

I'm really quite satisfied with this Lent Challenge.  While I understand the whole idea of sacrificing something in the name of religious, though I don't necessarily agree, I think this Challenge is more about control.  I've shown myself that I'm in control of the choices I make, and that there's very little that really stands in my way - the most significant of which is myself.  I can only hope that other people have learned that same lesson as well.

With that, I'd like to leave you with a movie recommendation.  If you haven't seen it yet, and you can handle a little bit of the gore, "Zombieland" is a freakin' awesome zombie movie!  Yes, it has zombies, and there are parts that are a bit scary.  But it's a really funny and entertaining movie.

Happy Easter!