Lent

It's Shrove Tuesday and I'm not having any pancakes.
I'm sure everyone knows the traditions behind today and tomorrow (Ash Wednesday) and some know more traditions than others but the clearing of the fat from the house to allow easier fasting is similar to what I'm doing with a vodka martini right now. A LARGE vodka martini.
I suffer from a few problems, an excess of body and a lack of funds and will power (actually these three are the same thing) but I realised quite a while back that the ability to change these is within me, and not doing anything about it is my own fault as well.
So.
Booze is my biggest excess so I'm giving it up for the 40 days (and Sundays - see, people forget that Sundays don't count, especially Refreshment or Mothering Sunday) but as a priest I used to know once said, Lent is also a chance to start something.
With this in mind, as well as not drinking from tomorrow until Easter I'm going to finally get off my arse and start exercising properly. I should probably keep a track online of what I'm doing, what with this now being in the public domain and my friends being likely the best thing to keep me on track.
I've got a copy of the RAF fitness test downloaded - well, I say that, I mean I've got a copy of the beep test that the RAF use - so all I need now is will power.
Nuts.
Which is pretty much where if I'm not careful it's all going to go wrong. 40 days (+ Sundays) isn't that long and I should be able to see some results in that time but (as I just realised from the Simpson's) when I look back on Lent this year I want to feel like I've accomplished something. Admittedly I want to be able to look back on every year, and one day every day, with satisfaction that I've done everything I can with the time I've had, but one step at a time.
If this sounds a bit fluffy and touchy-feely, it is, but I blame Snopes, and in particular this Snopes article and , for that. Steve Jobs' comments on the old expression about living every day as if it was your last made me realise what that actually meant hit home; but maybe not enough to make me act on it yet. That can change. Again, the ability to change or to not rests in myself and I can't blame anyone except myself for me not changing.

Anyway, apart from that, enjoy some steampunk stuff: case mods, monitors and keyboards (Dear Santa).