40 days and 40 nights...

of honest to goodness change. No, I'm not Catholic, but I believe in making changes for the better, so I've always been an avid participant of Lent.

Last year I gave up sex and cupcakes and I thought I made it through the entire 40 days until a guy "friend" of mine reminded me that we had cupcakes just moments after sex only a few weeks before Easter, so once again I failed. Challenges. Bring. It. On.

I'm not so good with New Year's Resolutions, but something about the 40 days and nights of Lent (probably because even Ashton Kutcher once did it), I think it semi manageable, even for someone like me.

So here goes what I'm giving up/or taking on this year for Lent:

1. As a sportswriter at The Blonde Side, I'm constantly surrounded by amazingly in shape women and athletes and their wives. I'm always Googling running methods or the psychology behind good solid running, so why not, on top of everything else, make a vow to run everyday for all 40 days. Rain or shine, I will run (even if on a treadmill, and yes, even the day after my next half marathon in March). I make a promise that I will run no less than 2 miles a day (to make it worth the sweat I'll inevitably put in), so that's AT LEAST 80 miles I'll run over the next 40 days. Starting at 8:30am with my friend Avery tomorrow. Bring It.

2. Lent is always a good excuse to give up a bad habit. Being a southern girl and living in Texas, sweet tea, or tea in general is my thing. For the next 40 days, no soda, no tea, no sweet tea. Hopefully this will also help with my aqua consumption. We shall see.

3. As a freelance writer, working for myself (which means my home is my office), I've gotten used to sleeping in. This is a weird one, because even for an insomniac, I've been known to sleep in. So my third and final thing for Lent this year is giving up sleeping in. I will not (no matter what time I go to sleep, or if i I go to sleep at all), sleep in past 9am on weekdays or later than 10am on weekends. This might sound lame to those of you 10hour a night sleepers, but for me, this will most definitely be a challenge.

.jl.

Not Your Typical Valentine's Day Gift

I get it - nothing about my life is normal. Ever. Not even close.

This Valentine's Day as I geared up to "Boycott the World" for the Hallmark holiday I have come to know and hate, my doorbell rang. When your doorbell rings on Valentine's Day (for those of you other self-employed folk), you know there's probably a surprise in store on the other side. Oh hello understatement.

Not in the form of beautiful red roses or a sweet handwritten note which one might think on such a day, but instead, in the form of a book.

From my ex.

The ex from over two years ago.

A package with the book, "Why We Broke Up" showed up in a FedEx box on my doorstep with the following note scribbled on his office letterhead:

Jayme,

I know you hate Valentine's Day, but I thought this might be a good time to give this to you. After I ended things, you kept asking why we broke up and what went wrong. I knew you were heartbroken, but I couldn't find the words at the time.

Mike* told me you recently joined Match.com. He said your FB posts were hilarious, as I'm sure they were knowing you. He also said he didn't understand why a pretty, outgoing and avid sportsfan like yourself was single. I didn't want to say anything to him, but thought I should to you. I heard about this book (don't ask how, but I did) and took the liberty of highlighting some points about why you and I didn't work. Maybe this will help for your search in love. On Match or wherever else you decide to look for it.

You'll always have a special place in my heart. Take care and enjoy the book. Best of luck. And no hard feelings, k?

LYA [stands for love you always - sweet right?]

As you'll see from the picture above, said ex douche actually took the liberty of putting tabs on certain pages. I did some research on this book and how he ran across a book in the Young Adult Literature section at Barnes and Noble is well beyond me. It's apparently a book about a couple that is going through a breakup, narrating their relationship along the way. They take turns reminiscing about old times, citing reasons for the ending. It's actually quite alarming how he came across such a book, but I guess that isn't the point. Hmm, I wonder if he highlighted somewhere that I try and dissect too much information?

And the pages he notated for my reading pleasure? Since the book is all about memories, one of the pages he highlighted was about a dinner the couple went out to. It cited that she ate too much for a girl. He made his own note, "Luckily you work out, but this can scare guys. Especially when we think long term, meaning metabolism goes..."

Another memory of the couple was how she'd always take his clothes and wear them to sleep in. The note that accompanied that tab? "Jayme, girls are supposed to go to bed in sexy lingerie, not my UT mesh shorts that come past your knees."

Oh, so that's why we broke up? I didn't want to go to sleep with bacteria infested thongs that spelled his name in bedazzled jewels? How the hell did I not know this was a deal breaker?

Another tab was about how I dwell on things too much and don't let arguments pass.

My argument to that (which has and always will be) that if you don't TALK about the problem and address it properly, YES, I will continue to rehash the issue, because it remains just that, AN ISSUE. Simple communication would have fixed that, but alas, I don't have a book that I can mark up and send to him, now do I?

Oh and the final Happy Flippin' Valentine's Day kicker for me? After getting the "package", I headed out to the grocery store for a bottle of Prosecco to help ease the pain so I could continue reading each tab carefully through the tears. Pulled into my garage, opened the door to grab the bottle practically foaming at the mouth for a drink and wouldn't you know it tumbled out and smashed right on the ground. All over my brand new running shoes. Awesome, yes?

Crying over spilled milk? Not so much. Crying over chilled champagne however? Cry, cry like a baby is exactly what I did.

So Happy Valentine's Day to all of you. I can't wait for this day to be over. The countdown is on. T-minus some number of hours. I was never good with math anyways. Luckily I had a backup bottle of champagne to fill in.

But in all honesty, book aside, today wasn't so bad. I got flowers from an amazing guy (one who doesn't want a relationship or anything to do with me), but that's besides the point. I think. Or at least not needed for this post. I also ran my regular Tuesday 5k with Avery and BON Running Club and finished up a new article for my Culture Map column on Astros 3B, Chris Johnson. So yeah, not a complete waste of a day :)

[Note, as depressingly hilarious as today may have been for you and even myself, it could never have been worse than last year, which even I can't bring myself to blog about. So there's, that.]

.jl.