Happy Easter!

I had a great Easter weekend. I spent most of Saturday relaxing, which was nice given that I had to work last weekend. Twelve straight days of work tires me out!

For Easter, I went to church and then spent the afternoon at the home of some wonderful friends. Their Easter get-togethers remind me of my family's when I was growing up. Tons of family, bunches of children, egg hunting, games, wonderful food, and funny conversation. Since I don't have any family out here, I feel so lucky and blessed to be included in their day.

This year for Lent, I gave up celebrity gossip. That might sound petty or trivial, but if you stop to consider how much time I spent checking People.com and UsMagazine.com (both on my computer at work and my iPhone), and how much time I spent watching E!, it turned out to be WAY to much time spent caring about a lot of crap that I have no business caring about. Whenever I had a few minutes to kill, I'd log onto the Internet and read mindlessly about people that I don't know and who, for the most part, disgust me with their ridiculous, silly, and often illegal behavior.

I think I've learned to make better use of my time. One positive result has been that I read the news more often, and I pay more attention to it (rather than just glancing over it). Also, I've begun to spend my free time on activities that probably won't rot my brain: playing crossword puzzles and Scrabble on my iPhone (okay, it's not really Scrabble; it's really the Words With Friends app -- my user name is avbreland, so if any of you have it, please start a game with me, and if you don't have it, get it).

I haven't reverted back to my old habits yet. We'll see how long I last, now that I don't have the guilt of Lent to keep me on the straight and narrow.