Are you doing a 40 in 40?

So yeah, Lent started yesterday but it's never too late.

I'm not Catholic and I don't feel the need to "give up" anything for Lent, but there are a couple other ideas out there that I've shared before (see last year's post). One is the 40/40 Challenge. It's 40 minutes of exercise every day during Lent. The 40 days doesn't include Sundays; you can rest on Sundays, or not.

The other is 40 Bags in 40 Days, brought to you by White House Black Shutters blog. This is about de-cluttering. I'm pretty sure I could get rid of 40 bags in my closet alone. If you click on the link back there, you'll get some great tips and ideas if you think you might not have 40 bags worth of "stuff."

Having said that I don't give up stuff for Lent, this year Aaron made a suggestion that initially made me laugh my head off, but actually I'm kind of digging it. We are giving up dining out -- in Columbus (an important distinction which will become clear very soon). We shall see how this goes...

Since this is my first post of the week, I also wanted to share that last weekend was our annual neighborhood chili cook-off. Here are the winners (categories include Best Vegetarian, Best Traditional, Hottest, Most Unique, and Best in Show).

This year's Most Unique went to a chili called "Sexual Chocolate." They even made their own sign for it:

If you can't read it, some of the ingredients included chocolate stout and cayenne cocoa,
and the garnishments were chocolate-dipped bacon, cilantro and sour cream.
OMG, it was delicious.