three things I’m focusing on for Lent

It was around midday on Tuesday, as we wrapped up at homeschool group, that I realised I’d totally flaked on our traditional Shrove Tuesday pancake breakfast. I had been so looking forward to it – last week was an insane one, and the small joy of a special breakfast with my three kiddos at home (and surprising Bear with some bonus fundage to go buy some in Sydney) was one I’d been looking forward to. But life tends to be very lifeish, and my Tuesday morning disappeared in a whirl of chores and pop-ins and tech prep and packing bags for a morning out, and breakfast wasn’t even on my radar.

Instead, we did it yesterday. As the children get bigger and their own lives expand and my role in their worlds shrinks, the opportunities for spontaneous joy are becoming rarer – or at least, opportunities when all three of them are at home. I need to grab what I can. Likewise, our traditions, built carefully over the last two decades, are drifting away. Movie night only happens on holidays, because everyone is now at Youth Group on a Friday. Seasonal jammies have given way to mugs and hoodies, as they develop their own, grown up sleepwear preferences that often have very little to do with fluffy bunnies, or minions in elf hats. In the midst of all that change, I wasn’t going to let the pancakes go.

While they hooked into the pancakes, I got started on one of our other traditions – mama made hot cross buns for Ash Wednesday. I went with a traditional recipe, sans sultanas, because if I’m doing the work to make them, I’m going to make ones I like to eat! I used the BBC Mary Berry recipe, and despite not having any golden syrup to finish them off, Mr Barefoot declared them “better than shop ones”, so I’ll call them a success.

Once we sat down to do school, I got busy pulling up some printables and getting my Lent journaling prompts prepared – or thought I was going to, anyway. I’d only been intending to get to it all week, so of course I didn’t get it done until day one. The series I thought I had turned out to be just for Holy Week, so off I went for a little search, and found the perfect Lent study – Called To Create. A 40 day series centred around creativity? Yes please! Bought, downloaded, printed, cropped, and ready to go!

With that done, I was ready for my three focus points for Lent:

1 – the study, obviously

2 – swap the scroll & give my mornings a glow up. I’ve gotten into a bad habit over the January doomscroll, of spending my morning coffee on Threads. Over the next forty days, I intend to reset that habit, and swap the scroll for knocking out my NYT games, and then reading one chapter of my book. Then if I have time, add in some sketch booking.

3 – morning movement. Every day, I want to get my toosh out the door and into the fresh air before I do anything else. Nothing but me, the walking track, and a podcast. I’ve gotten out of the habit, and now the mornings are cooling off again, I have no excuse. (Today I did skip the walk but made up for it by taking the boys to the MTB park, and now I can’t feel my legs)

Today’s job – once my legs are no longer jelly – is to find a box for my study cards to keep them organised, create a morning basket with everything I need to grab and go without thinking about it, and working out a podcast routine so I don’t waste time scrolling each morning. Tonight, I will pop my leggings and joggers beside my bed, so I have not excuse not to get up and get moving. I’ve added everything to my to-doist routines, so I will be sure to check back and report on my progress.

Let the easter season begin!