Today is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, being that I'm Catholic, today was always the day growing up that I would give up something I love and replace it with something spiritual, like praying a rosary once a week or doing daily devotionals with my Mama. This year, I have decided to give up FaceBook, so I deactivated my account. I also decided to give up diet coke and dr. pepper - the only two types of coke I care for, fast food and unhealthy snacks. I figure, I just turned 20 and it's the beginning of Lent, so why not give up more than usual, and try to deprive myself of temptations, to honor my Lord and Savior who spent forty days and forty nights in the desert constantly being tempted by Satan. As a replacement, I intend to make sure I get to church weekly (I've been slacking this semester!) and pray a rosary at least once a week. Easter season is my favorite church holiday, because unlike Christmas, Easter reflects more on God, than on presents that you will give and receive. Plus, as much as I LOVE Christmas carols, there are some Easter songs that are my favorite during mass, probably because we are deprived of song for so long before them! Anyways, today they are doing an Ash Wednesday service in our student center on campus that I'm going to go to, since my day is pretty packed otherwise.

My exam on Monday went okay; I only got an 80 and I left the exam feeling as though I'd aced it! I'm more than a little disappointed with myself. I have an exam tomorrow at 12:40 in my recreation management class; I have to get all my studying done tonight though, because tomorrow morning I open at work and work up until 10 minutes before the exam. Tomorrow night we have a staff meeting at 5. So tomorrow will seem to be a very long day! I also have two papers to write for my recreation management class, one is a time analysis paper of how I spent my time over the last two weeks - most of the time I was studying or playing games with my boyfriend and other close friends. Kind of eye opening! The other paper is on a book by a man named Daniel Dustin and we have to pick our favorite essay out of the book and examine why it was meaningful to us and what ideas are interesting and important and describe how they are reflected in our own life. I think I'll like this assignemnet, because there was achapter on technology and multi-tasking which could be really fun to write about, and other chapters are about very "Montana" things such as hiking, canoeing, backpacking, fly-fishing, etc. that I have come to love and appreciate about the "Last Best Place" and the "Big Sky State".

Did y'all watch Obama last night? I did not vote for the man, I am still a huge McCain supporter and when they showed him last night I always said "I love McCain!" much to my roommate's amusement! Speaker Pelosi kind of bothered me with her nonverbal language, but then again, I've never been her biggest fan! I think that Obama is great at prepared speeches, but in debates he kind of flounders, so last night, since it was a prepared speech, he sounded very eloquent, articulate and intelligent and I feel that he did a good job addressing a joint session of Congress for the first time as our President. I do not agree with much of what he proposed, but was very pleased when he spoke about education being neither a democrat or republican issue, but an American issue and that he wasn't speaking about education reform as a president, but as a parent, which I felt was very appropriate with what he said in relation to his daughter's ages. I alsoe enjoy how he, without fail, always includes personal stories of "typical, yet very untypical" Americans working to make a difference and I believe his call to the American people to engage in more community involvement and service in our own communities will be a strong and powerful way to unite everyone regardless of political preference into making our local communities better - after all "change" starts at the grassroots level, right?

This weekend, some friends of mine and friends from home of my roommate (and her little sister who my sister's age and they share a name!) are coming too to go spend Saturday at a cabin on Seeley Lake, just to get away and have some fun! I hear there is actually snow there too, which will be fun since we have had THE most mild winter - seriously, hardly ANY snow! Which is fine, I don't miss the below zero temperatures of winters past but it also just hasn't felt like winter... it's kind of gone from autumn straight to spring... but now just for saying that I bet we get a huge snow storm! hahaha!

Well, I feel like I just wrote a novel, and I have to get ready for the day since I accidentally slept through my 9 a.m. class - oops! I think it's because I'm starting to get sick and when that happens my body combats it through LOTS of extra sleep! Here's to hoping that y'all have a wonderful day! ♥