Warning: this post is preachy and self-righteous and could be offensive to some.

Wow. I almost fell off the wagon last night. I’ve been doing some “window shopping” and stumbled across the most beautiful blouse in the world on ebay a few days ago. I didn’t even think twice and spontaneously bid on the item to my regret!!!!! I kept crossing my fingers that someone would outbid me … no such luck.

I contacted the seller before the auction ended and he said if I won, he would just cancel the transaction. Wow.

How generous and nice. I apologized profusely and still feel like a jerk about it, but am so glad I didn’t buy it.

I’m really trying to stick to my challenge for religious reasons, but also for reasons of integrity.

I think I learned my lesson by having to feel like a heel in retracting my bid. I still am grateful to the guy for letting me bow out.

I think I dodged a bullet, but learned my lesson.

My bookclub had a discussion about not a cent in lent last night (the CREATOR, my friend Jen) is in bookclub.

We talked about how it may seem a little self righteous to say so, but it is frustrating when so many people say, “Oh, how can you do that … it would be so hard, and so on.”

All we are doing is giving up buying NON ESSENTIALS until Easter. I buy food. I went and bought my daughter some dry erase markers her teacher said she needed to replace at school. I am NOT depriving myself. I have everything I NEED. Everything.

When you look at the world and look at so many people who don’t have the luxury to decide whether or not they are going to spend their money on non-essentials, it brings it all home. I think that is also the point of doing this Lenten challenge:  Realizing that the essentials that we are “restricting” ourselves to during this short time period of Lent, are out of reach for some people.

Most of us are so insulated in our tidy, comfy little worlds that we don’t even remember how others are scraping by to provide food for their families.

We are doing OK financially now, but I try to never forget this because even though I have always been able to feed my family, always had clothes and always have had a roof over our heads, I have been in the position before where I am feeding my kids scrambled eggs for dinner a few nights a week because our food budget was the only place with any wiggle room — and EVEN STILL I was still INCREDIBLY wealthy compared to most people in the world.

All right, I’ll get off my soapbox now …

It is just something I feel passionate about and it’s OK if you don’t agree …