Celebration and Temptation

We are at the tail end of the Fall birthday celebrations. Our family celebrates 3 birthdays within the span of 3 weeks and that means lots and lots of cake. Cake at school. Cake at home. Cake at work. Okay, so I didn’t actually get cake for my birthday, but a good friend did bring in brownies. And this is why my pants are currently very, very angry with me.

So when a friend of mine asked me to be her accountability partner in her journey to go sugar free for a month, I was very excited. I thought, if she can do it, I can do it too! And then I actually had to do it. Day one was easy for the first few hours until I remembered that I had ordered McArthur’s cake for a partner at work who was celebrating an anniversary. But resisting McArthur’s cake is actually pretty easy for me because if I eat one piece, I am like a shark in bloody water. My eyes roll back in my head, and then I dive head first into the cake and the crumbs starting flying. And since I didn’t want icing in my hair, I abstained.

But just when I thought I was safe, day two threw yet another cake at me. Days three and four threw bagels and cookie cake at me, and day five I was too terrified to leave my cube for fear of encountering an ice cream monster. After all, these kinds of sugary temptations seem to find me no matter how hard I try to avoid them.

Why is it that sometimes it is so easy to avoid sugar, and other times I may as well be swimming in a lake of the white stuff? With all of that said, today we celebrated the birth of my second child. And since I am his mom, he asked me to make him a chocolate cake with chocolate icing. And because I love him and am self-sacrificing that way, I did. And I did not eat a single piece(though half of it is still hanging out in the refrigerator upstairs). You see, I have to put space between myself and the cake or my pants will never forgive me. They have been pretty angry with me this month and I am trying desperately to prove to them that I won’t let them down. And you know we can’t disappoint the pants.

I rode my bike 28 miles this morning. It was a really nice day to soak up the sunshine and breath in some fresh air. And while I really missed church, it was nice to have time to think and reflect and mentally prepare for the week ahead. I have been under a tremendous amount of stress recently at work and I just couldn’t pressure myself to rush through the morning and fight with my children to get out of the door on time to make it to services, and then rush through the cake decorating and birthday festivities. Sometimes I just have to take a break and nourish my body and my soul.

My not-so-little guy hung out with his cousins while I caught up with my fabulous sister. My mother was very kind to let us hold the shenanigans at her home and we just had a really nice time relaxing and eating(or not eating) cake and catching up on all the recent happenings in our world. And I decided that when I grow up I’m going to be just like my sister because even though I’m older, she’s wiser and much cooler than I am–not to mention the best mom on the planet to 5 lovely girls. Hanging out with them just makes me so darn happy.

The good news is that tomorrow is Monday and I have another chance to face temptation and conquer through it. And thank goodness we don’t celebrate another birthday until the end of January!

On October 16, 2016   /   The Journey   /   Leave a comment