Soccer and Lent

I have been so busy lately that I haven’t had much time to update my blog. Last Sunday I officially joined the church I’ve been attending for the last four months; Hope United Methodist in Rancho Bernardo. It feels like I am “home”. I have thrown myself into a variety of activities and foresee some pretty full weeks in my future. Tuesdays are handbell practice. Wednesdays are a weekly Bible study group. Choir practice is on Thursday, as is the turbo kickboxing class which I attend. I also acquiesced and signed Luke up for soccer this week; his first practice is this afternoon so Wednesdays will be busy, as well as Saturday morning games. I am really content though in a way that I have not been, well, ever. I have felt for so long like I was waiting for something to happen in my life and so many pieces have come together recently. I even met a friend at church who lives nearby and wants to get together to go hiking regularly and she and I are the same age. Life is good!

Having been raised Baptist, the concept of Lent is relatively new to me personally. My best friend (the one for whom I am stitching the Christening Gown, and I thank you all for your kind comments on the progress!) is Catholic so I knew *of* Lent of course, but it wasn’t really observed in the Baptist church where I grew up. The pastor at Hope UMC stressed that is isn’t just about giving up some thing that you enjoy but about giving up something that gets in the way of things that are really important and replacing it with something meaningful. I don’t know what I’m going to do, or if I’m going to do anything particular. I’ve made a number of changes in my life recently and I think if I can maintain them then I’m in pretty good shape.

I’ve been trying to stay on track with exercising to prepare for our ski trip. It is so hard to make time for everything, but I’m doing pretty well on that front. I’m at 181.5 miles on my “way to Rivendell”. I took Luke to the Wild Animal Park on Saturday (where we walked what I estimated to be 3 miles total) and then we went to the mall on the way home. Robinsons-May is closing since they’ve been bought by Macy’s so I bought some new dresses in yet another size smaller. I actually had to go get a smaller size, and I thought the first size might be too small so that was great. One of them is a killer dress which I may wear to my high school reunion in October. Luke got a cookie at Mrs. Fields so it was a good trip to the mall for both of us.

I’d been meaning to write about the Olympics but I never really found the time. Luke has really enjoyed them, especially the skiing and snowboarding. He spends a lot of time “skiing” and “snowboarding” using pieces of wood in the backyard. When we bought his soccer gear Monday night we bought a pair of ski poles for $2.90 on clearance. I thought they were a steal at the $4.47 marked price. He has been pretending to ski downhill ever since. I may still write an entry related to the Olympics, or not if I don’t have time. I had a few things to say on the subject, but I don’t have time to get into it now.