40 Days & 40 Nights

No, this isn’t a post about the Josh Hartnett movie from 2002, but this post is about giving something up. Namely my biggest vice: shopping. 

Now, those of you who know me know that I don’t abide by any form of organized religion, least of all Christianity (don’t even get me started), so during the Lenten season I don’t bother giving anything up for the 40 days before Easter. Besides the tradition of Fat Tuesday (any excuse for a pancake feast) I don’t see the point of giving up the things that I love. My vices are pretty non-harmful and are generally under control so being told that I should give up something “just because” doesn’t really fly with me. 

That being said, in 40 days I’m going on my first passport-stamp-able international adventure (my 12-year-old trip to Disneyland came before the 9/11 drama of children needing passports) with my BFF to Las Vegas, mostly for the point of shopping. Come on, this is us, and shopping is what we do when we’re together (as well as driving everyone around us insane with our extrapolated weirdness). Most people go to Las Vegas for gambling, showgirls, and conventions, but besides the practically mandatory Cirque du Soleil show, we plan to shop until we drop. 

We’ve already started working on our plan of attack - shuttle buses to the Premium Outlet Mall(s), second hand book stores, and everything in between - so by the time we get there we’ll be able to hit the ground running. Or not running, since shopping the way that we do is a marathon rather than a sprint. That being said, I figure that there’s not really any point in doing any shopping in the meantime, since anything that I find here I can find in Vegas (and likely for a fraction of the price), so I am making a conscious decision not to buy anything besides groceries (girl’s gotta eat!) for the next 40 days & 40 nights. 

Will I make it, or will my shop-a-holic tendencies take over? I’m betting that I can (I’ve done it before for a lot longer), but a lot can happen between now and the beginning of October…

image from Tumblr