Picture the scene: It’s a cold winter’s night on February the 16th, 2010. I’d had thusfar enjoyed delightful evening wondering why we call Shrove Tuesday “Pancake Day” but don’t call Halloween “Candy Day” or Christmas “Enough Carbohydrates to Fire a Man to the Moon Day” when I noticed that somebody had commented on my Facebook Discussion board.
I glanced at the clock. The evening was drawing to a close, but it was only 10:30. I currently have a self imposed bed time1 of around midnight, so I had plenty of time to log on, check what insanity I was being asked to complete, add it to the bottom of the list and hit the hay.
I actually had three new additions and it was the first I now write about, it was from Gemma. Now Gemma, for her sins, is my best friend. We’ve known each other for years and always made each other laugh. There are other reasons why we’re BFF’s but essentially it’s because she thinks I’m as funny as I think she is.
It’s a good arrangement.
Anyway, this is what my best friend in the world had written:
“Give up Facebook for Lent”
I glanced at the clock again. The time was rather pressing rather firmly on 10.36pm and Lent as I understood it officially kicked off at midnight. An hour and twenty four minut – No! – an hour and twenty three minutes until I had to log off Facebook for 46 entire days.
It dawned on me that the entirety of my Challenges were currently resting on my Facebook account. Heck!2 My list of challenges were only available to me on the Group I created. Yes, I know – I should probably have backed up – I’m an idiot, but this is my story, so, quiet at the back.
I went into a mad frenzy (like Wolverine), cutting posts (like Wolverine) from the Facebook site and leaving them in a word-pad (not like Wolverine). Okay, that’s not actually true. What actually happened was I read the challenge, thought about it for a minute. Was brought a cup of tea by my lovely assistant (who will probably shout at me for calling her my lovely assistant) and then I went into a mad frenzy (like Wolverine).
Anyway. This Website is due to Gemma challenging me to give up Facebook for Lent. Lent is 46 days in total – apparently I can have Sundays off (according to Wikipedia) but I think it would be best just going cold turkey. Although just to remind me, I’ve put a massive timer on the sidebar.
Which may be a mistake.
Amazingly it wasn’t too much of an issue. In 2010 I gave up Facebook for Lent with relative ease but I’m told I technically I cheated. And here’s how I did it: When I set up the website, I also went into my Livejournal blog and made it that when I added a post to it, it also indicated on my Facebook that this had happened. Sneak I know, whilst I didn’t set foot on Facebook, I was still about to indicate to my Facebook “fans” that I was posting elsewhere. Not only did I leave Facebook for lent, I also added 20 new members to my Livejournal blog.
Which I count as a win.
1 – Even Grown-ups have bedtimes.
2 – I didn’t (admittedly) say Heck
