/life/sabbatical/Giving Up For Lent
I'm not going to buy this tshirt, despite its
high awesomeness quotient.
I've been mulling over a moratorium on purchases; despite writing about this idea on Pancake Tuesday, I didn't make the Lenten connection. The Church of England pulled it together for me with their Carbon Fast. I'm pretty up on my carbon, but I can take the hint: I'm giving up purchases of durables for lent. This, at a time when I've just lost my iPod, heaven forbid. (Though given my loss-and-destroy rate for iPods, calling them "durables" and not "consumables" is suspect.)
Here are the consumables on the white-list: soaps and cleaners, food (including restaurant food), toiletries.
Lent lets you skip Sundays, as I understand it, but that's no good for durables purchases. So instead I'm going to give myself three (3) exceptions for exigent circumstances. I have an interview-ish-things to do volunteer research/advocacy work with Pembina Institute, and have to match the office dress code, which is slightly higher than I'm used to. Okay. More than slightly. Not quite bowties and cumberbunds, but still far from jeans and a tshirt. I think I can make it go without anything new, though it may take one or two remaining exceptions. I also have an Economist subscription that I'm not going to cancel.
So yeah. It's a couple days late, but retroactive from Feb 6 to Mar 22. I don't think it'll be that hard, but we'll see. The trickiest thing will be to remember the rules every time I bust out my wallet.
Also, this is blog number 200. Woo.
Oh right, aalllso, in other news, I went out canvassing for the first time, last night with Chris Tindal. We did several floors of a large apartment building. Of perhaps 100 knocks, maybe 50% were absent, one guy was moderately hostile, a few doors were closed promptly, but most people were friendly. I was surprised how many people positively indicated who they were voting for, one way or the other. People seemed receptive, and Chris was good at what he does, including playing friendly with dogs, despite mild allergies. Oh, the things politicians do!
