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It’s LENT

09 Tuesday Feb 2016

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It’s that time again, folks! LENT! I don’t have some long complicated thing to post this year, but I do have a reflection on something a friend posted on Facebook the other day. I have always thought of sacrifice as something you give up. Maybe it’s getting up early to exercise or not eating something you want or biting your tongue or giving away your money to a cause, but a friend posted last week that you can also sacrifice by adding a habit! Last year I added and stopped something at Lent, but I thought of it more as balancing out and trying to start a new habit, I didn’t realize that they were both sacrifices. So, this year I am going to add and remove some things.

I am going to add prayer/meditation and exercise.

I have seen a few 30 day exercise challenges and I am going to combine several and try to exercise at least half an hour a day. I am a little “soft” for my age and I could definitely be in better shape, so I am going to try to build some muscle and firm up.

I am also going to pray/meditate every day. I am super bad about praying regularly. It’s SO weird because I used to pray allll the time when I was young, but I really don’t anymore. I mean, I often talk to God throughout the day, but I don’t set aside time to meditate/pray without distractions. So, I’m going to do that.

As for giving up stuff, the past two years I’ve given up meat and Facebook and was successful both times.

This year I reallllly don’t know what I am going to give up. I mean, most of my bad habits have to do with not doing stuff (not going to bed early, not waking up early, not being sociable, etc.) so that’s why I’m adding two things. But all things considered, I think I am going to attempt to give up alcohol. Honestly, I don’t think I’m going to be able to not have any alcohol for 40 days because my job is very emotionally taxing and tests my patience (if you don’t remember, I take care of a lady with Alzheimer’s everyday while her husband is at work) and I don’t really have anything else to do as a stress release. I can’t afford a gym membership and the area I live in/weather right now isn’t hospitable for going out alone to exercise after work. Hopefully the meditation/prayer will be a good tool to help with tension and anxiety. I don’t drink every day, but my plan if I end up drinking with friends or slip up on my own is to compensate by giving up internet. If I drink one day, that will mean I cannot use internet for 24 hours and vise versa. The internet and wine are my two regular pleasures, so sacrificing one of those things everyday will definitely be difficult. This also means if I drink wine the only activities I can do will be exercise/reading/writing/watching DVDs. I use my phone as a security blanket/emotion buffer EVERYDAY, so having to give up the internet (switching to airplane mode) for a day will be huge for me.

Anyway, do you plan on giving anything up/adding anything to your routine over the next 40 days?

If so, good luck and tell me in the comments below!

It’s Been Nine Months Since My Last Confession

02 Thursday Apr 2015

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Forgive my tardiness. My mom is coming to visit for the Easter weekend and I put off all my cleaning until the last minute. I’ve been running around like a chicken with its head cut off for the last 3 hours dusting, vacuuming, Swiffering, mopping, doing dishes, bleaching,Windexing, burning candles, doing laundry, taking out garbage, and other such nonsense. 

I pride myself on keeping a clean house, but there is nothing like an impending visit from your mom to help you see all the little things that need to be done.

My mom get’s here tomorrow at 2:55, but I have to be to work at 3 so she is going to meet me at my boss’ house and hangout with me there until I get off. I only work a couple of hours tomorrow, so hopefully we will get home early, make dinner, have some wine, and watch a movie or something. Friday we are going downtown, then Saturday I am taking her to Little Italy and the New York Botanical Garden for an orchid show, all here in the Bronx! I don’t know what we are doing Sunday yet. A friend invited me to go to church with her, but I will have to see what my mom wants to do.

Anyway…this week’s Write or Die Wednesday prompt asks what your biggest vice is or which of the seven deadly sins you commit most often?

Write or Die Wednesday

This is quite fitting for Easter, haha!

There are seven deadly sins: greed, envy, lust, sloth, wrath, pride, and gluttony.

I’m Catholic and part of being Catholic is examining one’s conscience on a regular basis, before going to confession or on a regular basis to keep one’s self in check!

Despite daily efforts to avoid doing sinful stuff, I could probably list twenty ways I commit each of these sins regularly. That being said, I definitly think I commit the sin of sloth most often!

  

I LOVE to sleep and watch movies, so that often leads to avoiding my responsibilities. I obviously work and maintain good grades, so it hasn’t necessarily impacted my life negatively, but it is definitely a severely bad habit that I possess. I can use almost anything to justify not leaving the house, even if I am initially really excited about doing something. My laziness means I don’t exercise the way I should, I don’t devote enough undivided attention to completeing assignments to the best of my ability (again, while still maintaining my grades), and I definitely don’t “take life by the horns” as much as I should. I am also spiritually lazy. I am Catholic, but I always seem to come up with excuses for not going to confession or praying the Rosary. I do pay attention to my faith and use it as a tool to become a better person, but sloth has contributed to not growing my faith to its full potential. 

Netflix, sleep, foreign languages, and wine are definitely my biggest enablers. I so thoroughly enjoy each of those things that I would rather partake in them than pretty much anything. I also LOVE hiking, shopping, fishing, swimming in the ocean, and traveling, but since I am living on a budget and can’t really safely do the others alone, I stick to my ol’ sloth-making activities. 

I’m sure anxiety and self esteem contribute to my laziness, since it is so much easier to avoid fear, confrontation, and other awkwardness when you just stay home. 

Gluttony would probably be my next biggest sin. I am definitely a hedonist at heart and I have a difficult time with self-discipline when it comes to certain things (like movies, goat cheese, and wine, HAHA!).  

One of the prayers that Catholic’s say at every Mass includes the line, “I have sinned in what I have done and what I have failed to do…” I remember the first time I heard this it kind of stunned me. I still think of sin as active choices we make to do bad stuff, but I never thought about the fact that you can also commit a sin by NOT doing something too. That’s still one of the big areas I have to work on, haha!

Texas Missions 

I’d say the sins I commit least often are wrath, pride, and envy.

I obviously get mad at people and sometimes want to smack them into next week, but I am not a vengeful, plotting, back stabbing type of person. I get my feelings hurt and take things personally more often than getting angry or wanting to get back at people. I’m also not a very prideful person. More often than not I assume that I did something to cause any negative events or behaviors and will often try to remedy the situation and apologize.   I admire a LOT of people and often do feel like other people are leading really fun and carefree lives, so I do feel envy in certain senses, but never in the way that I want to take what someone else has or live their life. I am thoroughly convinced everyone has their own problems and they have developed ways to cope with them. I know if I had the chance to inhabit someone else’s life or they had the chance to inhabit mine, we would each be unequipped  to deal with each other’s hardships. 

 Texas Missions 

Whether you are religious or not, we all do/think about doing crappy things everyday. I think as long as you are consistently working to make a positive contribution to the world (not matter what it is), correct your mistakes, and try to make others’ lives a little easier, then everything will all work out in the end. With this outlook you don’t even have to believe in/worry about heaven, hell, God, the devil, or sin (if you don’t want/need to) because the focus is on the now and doing the best you can in the present moment to make your life and the lives of those around you better. It’s a pretty awesome philosophy (check out A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle if you are interested)!

 Texas Missions 

Hopefully I will post a blog on Saturday or Sunday with some pictures from Little Italy and the New York Botanical Garden. I hope everyone has a good Passover/Easter or just a great weekend in general!

Talk to you guys next time!

Let’s Get Our Lent On!

16 Monday Feb 2015

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What’s up, folks?

I hope everyone had a great January.

I had some complications with my class enrollment, so I ended up only taking two classes this semester and will make up the third this summer. Still planning on graduating in December 2015, so all is well on that front.

This semester I’m studying the history of Italian Fascism in Italy and New York! If you’re a teacher or student, how’s your semester going so far?

Well, anyway, this blog is about Lent!

I converted to Catholicism in 2012 (RCIA and the whole bit) but I tried to make sacrifices for Lent several years prior to that. I’ve given up meat (a couple of times) and salt and have attempted to give up cussing and gossiping before too.

I failed at the cussing and gossiping before because driving and people, but I’ve succeeded at giving up meat a couple of times.

Even if you aren’t Catholic, have you ever succeeded in breaking a habit? How’d you do it?

This year I’m going to try to give up Facebook and cussing. But I’m also going to attempt to add two positive habits!

I am thoroughly addicted to Facebook. I like keeping in touch with people from the past, I like reading news, I like finding information that may be useful for friends, and I like seeing other people’s opinions. I also obviously like the attention. I’m much better at interacting with people online than in person, so I like getting likes and posting pictures and writing statuses. I’m one of those serial “likers” though, so I often pollute friends’ timelines and get blocked, haha! Giving up Facebook will help me be more present since I won’t be able to check my phone constantly.

It’s going to be hard for so many reasons. It helps me occupy my time and I use my phone as a security blanket as well. Not being able to constantly check Facebook is going to mean not having my phone to shield me from unwanted conversation and attention in public.

It’s also going to be lonely though. I’m Facebook friends with a lot of people that I want to be real friends with who don’t necessarily feel the same about me. Rather than messaging people and being all cheesy with the “let’s be friends” bit, I often like people’s pictures and statuses in order to force a connection with them and make an effort to become real friends. Since I won’t be able to force that connection through likes or comments, I will lose touch with people that weren’t interested in being my friend in the first place, which will be sad. It will be good though because I won’t bother people and if people decide they really do want to be friends they can make an effort to get in touch with me in other ways.

Facebook is also a platform where I post a lot of critical and judgmental thoughts and it also inspires me to be judgmental and critical of others. Let me clarify: I judge people and am critical of them but my judgements aren’t personal and do not affect my feelings toward people. Hopefully that makes sense. Seldom if ever have I allowed my judgement of another person’s life choices to affect my urge to be their friend or treat them nicely (IDeffW drug addicts-that aren’t making an effort to get clean-or criminals). I am extremely critical of myself and try to hold myself to a certain standard, but I know I can learn something from EVERYONE, even if their standards for their life and opinions/beliefs aren’t the same as mine (and vice versa). So, while I can justify my judgment of others, not being on Facebook will eliminate a lot of inspiration for being judgmental and critical of people.

I don’t Tweet or use Tumblr very much, so while I don’t think I will give those up, per se, I am not going to live tweet or retweet anything. I will auto-post/tweet from Instagram and other sites though (can’t break my Oscars tradition)!

I will stay on SnapChat, but only to talk to friends from Facebook that want to stay in touch!

Cussing won’t be too hard to give up…as long as I can find a positive habit to replace it with. The first time I tried to quit for Lent, I failed because I cannot not cuss when I drive…it’s like a compulsion, lol (thank the Lord I don’t have kids)! I don’t cuss at work or school, but I do cuss when I call/text my mom or friends to vent about stressful events. If I can find another way to vent and relieve stress in a positive way, then I think I’ll be able to stop cussing.

Now, while I am going to try to break two bad habits, I want to do something a little different this year and also ADD two positive habits!

I have seen several friends participate in the 100 Happy Days Instagram challenge, but I am going to change it up and I am going to post one happy/positive thing a day for the entirety of Lent. Follow me on IG and feel free to join the challenge! Just tag your pictures with the hashtag #ferventfor40 I don’t think I am a particularly negative person when it comes to my life and I don’t think I’m less appreciative than I should be, but I do dwell on things and am pessimistic. Posting one happy/positive thing a day for 40 days will hopefully get me into the habit of focusing on the positive aspects of my day, rather than the negative/stressful aspects (which should help eliminate my daily need to vent/cuss).

Last but not least, I want to read, write, or exercise for 30 minutes a day, everyday for 40 days. I am bad about procrastinating on school work, so this will help me get into the habit of doing a little bit everyday rather than panicking at the end of the semester. On days I don’t have homework, it will also encourage me to write more blogs! I would have committed to exercising 30 minutes a day, but it is cold as balls here and I have no space in my living room for inside exercise, so I am just making that mandatory for days when I don’t have any homework (conveniently, Spring Break falls in the middle of Lent).

So, I am giving up Facebook and cussing, but adding positivity and reading/writing/exercising!

Are you going to give up anything for Lent?

Feel free to post a comment below about your Lenten fast, breaking bad habits in the past, or creating positive ones!

Have a great week everyone!

Italia in 40: Day 34…Pope Francis, Rain, and AZZURRO!

14 Saturday Jun 2014

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Today was once again a perfect day in Italy. I can’t believe everything came together like it did.

SN: I had planned to get tickets to a papal audience later in the week…

I woke up at 9 and met my friend out in front of my building at around 10. We took the subway to the area around Vatican City. He’d never been to St. Peter’s so we were going to go check it out. First, we walked the wrong way and had to navigate back toward the cathedral. There are hundreds of “guides” always asking you to sign up for a tour, but yesterday they kept telling us that the church was closed until 2. I thought about turning back, but thank goodness, we kept walking and we realized the Pope was going to be speaking in only about an hour and a half.

We got ready to go through the medal detectors to walk into St. Peter’s Square and I remembered I had a knife in my bag. I had a boyfriend one time whose dad always carried a knife and I remembered him stashing his in the bushes one time when we went into the courthouse, so I got out of line and went and hid my knife under a palm tree and then we went into the square. There was a gathering of volunteer health workers in the square and although we weren’t sure the Pope would come out, I assumed he would so I wanted to wait just in case. I waited with my friend for about 30 minutes, but then I saw there was a better spot to get closer to the path that I thought the Popemobile would take, so I wiggled my way through the crowed and found an opening to get into the center part of the square and then inched my way down the gates so that I could get a good view. We waited about 40 minutes and were about to leave, but I decided to wait until 10 after noon, just in case. Sure enough, about that time, the crowed started cheering and I could see the Pope riding around on the screens they had set-up at both sides of the square. A few minutes later he drove right past the place I was standing! It was so crazy! I was shocked. He looked older in person, but he also looked really happy and he was smiling, but looked genuinely excited to be there. I’ve always thought that being the Pope would be so exhausting, but he was out there in in 85+ degree weather, no shade in sight, and just looked stoked about life. I am still just so shocked I got to see the Pope! I officially converted to Catholicism 2 years ago, so it’s extra special that I’ve already got to see the Pope. I hope it’s not the last time…I would love to go to midnight mass at Christmas one day! It’s hard for me to truly believe in the complete infallibility of the Pope, but if there ever was a Pope that could be infallible, I think Francis would be it.

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After seeing the Pope, we were super hot and tired, so we went back to my friend’s apartment. We stopped at a little market and bought drinks, fruit, and pasta and it was only 6 Euros! He cooked us lunch and I sliced up the fruit and we just relaxed for a little bit, before leaving to go to Palatine Hill. We just got to Palatine Hill when it started to get really cloudy and began to rain, so we decided to skip that and go to the Pantheon. We rode to the Spagna stop and walked toward the Pantheon, but it was crowded and raining so we kept getting lost.

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We eventually made it to the Pantheon and he went inside to take pictures and I went to a little cafe and got a coffee. After the Pantheon, we went back to my apartment so that he could use my computer and I could rest. He left around 8 and I tried to take a nap, but couldn’t.

Two days ago, someone stole my credit card info and purchased some stuff from Wal-Mart.com. I called my bank and told them that I was out of the country and hadn’t been in the U.S. for over a month, but they can’t do anything until I return to the country because they would have to cancel my card. I called my bank and took care of that and then showered and got ready to go out to watch Italy v England in the World Cup!

I looked online and found a pub near my building called Blind Pig, but on our way there we walked past another place that was more full and had food. We stopped and watched the first half of the game and split some pizza and wine. After the first half, we walked down the the Blind Pig and watched the rest. I really recommend this place. It’s the only place I’ve ever been to in Italy that sells craft beer on draft. They also serve food and it is decorated in a really cool way! I would definitely check it out if you are young or you like beer, or both! I had a beer called Apollo and it was delicious!

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After the game was over, my friend realized he had missed the last train for the night (in Rome trains stop running at 1:30 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights), so he walked me halfway back to my place and then we parted ways. It was really sad. We met last Christmas at school, where he was a foreign exchange student, so it’s going to be hard to stay in touch and see each other again. He’s the only other person I’ve ever met that is as interested in foreign languages as me, so I am really glad that we became friends. I have really weird interests, so it’s really hard for me to make friends and find people that are passionate about the same things as me. Even though I grew up in the Army, it’s still hard to say goodbye to a friend when you don’t know if you will ever see them again…

I didn’t get back to my place until 2:30 and I didn’t go to bed until 6 a.m…

To be continued…

Italia in 40: Day 32…A Castle, Some Ruins, and Prayer!

12 Thursday Jun 2014

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Today was a perfect day in Assisi!

Assisi is my favorite place in Italy. Since the first day I came here I have always felt like this is where I’m supposed to be. My soul just feels at home here. Also, if you believe in God at all, I highly recommend coming here for a little spiritual retreat at least once in your life. It’ll shift your consciousness in crazy ways, at least it did for me…even as a teenager.

I always go back to certain experiences in my memory whenever I am discouraged with life and need motivation to keep going or I create daydreams of experiences I hope I will have one day. I wrote a blog a while back about my daydreams, but there are a few experiences in my past that keep me pushing forward on bad days; my first visit to Assisi and the clarity it brought, is one of them. Other’s include swimming with the Honu on the North Shore when I was a kid, exploring the woods in Georgia when I was little, and other fun things I did as a child, before life got so complex. But Assisi will always be special to me because it really helped me mature spiritually. Before coming here the first time, I never really had a place in my heart for spirituality and especially religion. My relatives are all Christian, but after about the age of 7, due to some things I witnessed in churches and saw Christians doing, I was really skeptical about religion and very pessimistic about the existence of God, until coming to Assisi that first time. I went down into the tomb of St. Francis and just knew immediately that God existed. It’s weird, I know, but that’s the main reason I love it here.

Since then, I’ve dreamed of winning the lottery and building a villa in the valley below or retiring here and living in a little studio apartment near the San Rufino or the basilica.  Anyway, enough of that mess, let’s talk about today!

I got up pretty early, but didn’t leave my room until 10:30, when I decided to walk up to Rocco Maggiore. It was a spur of the moment decision, but I just started walking and going up any incline I saw that was leading to the top of the hill. Some weird looking young boy tried to talk to me in Italian and followed me for like half a mile up the hill leading to the city center, but thank God I ran into my conversation partner from yesterday and he stopped to say hi and remind me again about the concert tomorrow, so the weird boy kept walking.

In the center I got a water, coffee, and a cookie. Then I just started walking. I walked up a bunch of steps and ended up on some dirt and rock nature trail. I didn’t know if it was leading in the right direction or where I was going to end up, but thankfully it took me right up to Rocco Maggiore. It’s a medieval castle that is AWESOME! I bought an all-inclusive ticket to the Roman Forum museum down in the city-center and into Rocco Maggiore. I walked around the inside of the castle and went up a few of the towers. I took lots of pictures and GoPro footage (again, will upload when I have good internet). It was SO HOT OUTSIDE! I was up at the castle for over two hours. I had never been up to the castle before, but I highly recommend going if you are up for a little hike and some beautiful panoramas!

I had to pee really bad and couldn’t find a bathroom, so I went down nature trail and almost got caught popping a squat, so I ran down the hill…:P

I made it back to the city center and decided to go into the Roman Forum museum. I’ve been there on my first visit to Assisi, but the last two times I’ve been here it’s been closed. I found out today why it’s been closed: major renovations. It’s really well laid out and really nice. The ticket for Rocco Maggiore, the Roman museum, and another attraction I didn’t visit was only 8 Euros!

After the Roman museum, I decided to walk toward the basilica, but it was after 1 and everywhere was closing for lunch, so I stopped and got a bite to eat. I stopped at a cafe on the main road to the basilica and it wasn’t very good. The food was meh, the service was bad, and the prices were high. I got a small bowl of plain salad, 3 pieces of bruschette (one just had olive oil on it, the other had canned tomatoes, and the other had truffles), and half a liter of wine (screw-off cap) and it was 17 Euros. I sat at the restaurant for an hour and a half or so and it was kind of fun. At first, two Irish ladies sat next to me and they were hilarious. I don’t like complaining at restaurants when the service or food is bad, I just go on and pay for what I bought and just don’t eat. But these ladies were going off the chain. They got up and went to the waitress to order because she wouldn’t come over to our section and they didn’t leave a tip because the cover charge was 4 Euros. Their accents were so funny and they were so spunky.

After they left, a Chilean couple sat down and I spoke Spanish with them and took a picture of them because they were taking pictures of each-other and I felt bad they had no one to take a picture of them together. They were really funny and sweet. Around 2:30 I walked down the basilica and went in to the upper church. I really wish you could take pictures inside, but there was a sign forbidding it (I usually ignore them, but I didn’t want to disobey the rules here). On my way into the lower part of the church, where the tomb is, I saw a bookshop and went in. It is the best place in Assisi to get souvenirs. The regular stores around town charge crazy prices, but I got like 20 things (postcards, crosses, medals, and prayer cards) for 11 Euros!

After buying my souvenirs I went down into the temple and left a donation and dedicated 10 candles to my friends, family, and departed loved ones and then I recited the rosary and prayed a bit. I walked around the tomb and then went back upstairs.

After the basilica I went back to my room and napped and tried to cool off. After my nap I walked around for a bit and searched for a restaurant. I stopped at a restaurant with a GORGEOUS view and got grilled sausages, with Brussels sprouts and rosemary potatoes. This restaurant was great. I got mineral water, Prosecco, a side of potatoes, and my sausage and Brussels sprouts main course, with the awesome view for 22 Euros! Obviously proving that the cafe I went to for lunch was a rip off! The menu wasn’t very large, but I definitely recommend this place in every way!

After dinner, I walked back toward the basilica because I storm was rolling in and the sun was setting, so I knew it would be beautiful. Unfortunately, I left my main camera in my room to charge, but I had my Sony video camera and my iPhone. I got some great panoramas and it was SO beautiful. You could see the rain and lightening on one side of the church and the beautiful sunset on the other side. I would have paid a million dollars to have a DSLR tonight!

Once I was done taking pictures I walked back toward my hotel and got a beer and a gelato and went back to my room. I repacked, showered, and uploaded my pictures, so I am ready for Rome.

I can’t believe I am on the last leg of my journey! The first 7 days flew, the middle 5 days dragged by, but it has FLOWN since then! I’m scared of all of the things coming my way when I get home, so I want to enjoy this last week I have! I am going to hangout with my French friend again and I get to watch Italy play their first match of the World Cup on Saturday night, so I am very excited for the coming days.

Let’s finish this off with a bang!