Fat Thursday

Today in Poland is a celebration of Tłusty Czwartek - literally "Fat Thursday". This is the last Thursday before lent and the custom is that you eat as many doughnuts as you can. Apparently a standard Polish person will eat 2,5 doughnut today and it is considered a bad luck when you eat none. 

The tradition has it's origins in Europe since XIII century. At the beginning people were stuffing their faces only on the eve of the Ash Wednesday - this was the culmination of the carnival. Later, Monday was included in the celebrations. Because longer festive equals longer preparations, but people were not allowed to work on Sundays, baking and cooking was moved to Saturday. However, it was a custom to only work on Saturdays until noon and Friday was out of the question, as the day when Jesus died, all of the preparations concentrated on Thursday. People started to call it Fat Thursday due to the indulgence in food and more - the last opportunity before long weeks of the lent.

I did not eat doughnuts today (I'm on a diet!), but I reserved this pleasure for the weekend - I will eat one and only ONE sweet from the bakery of my choice. I'm salivating on the memory of the Hummingbird cupcakes, so the choice is simple for me.

Instead in calories I invested in these...

...and these.

On the exercise front: I can't sit, I can't even stretch - my inner tights hurt so much! I knew that Personal Trainer will be my doom! Today I went to the gym and I was barely able to stretch and the cross-trainer hurt. On the plus side - I've lost 1 kg, which is a great start! Gives a motivation and a feeling of achievement!

Saint Nicholas Day

Because sometimes you just have to get up, put on your favourite heels, put on a slap of make-up, a brave face and walk out of door. Today I went to buy some Christmas cards and little gifts. I went today hoping that on Monday afternoon shopping at the shopping centre will be a rather nice experience. I was wrong. Just driving there I could see rows and rows of cars at the car park. What's happening inside can be described by only one word: frenzy. People walking everywhere, buying, trying, checking and carrying bags. I don't even want to know what was going on there yesterday and on Saturday! 

A little something for Boyfriend

I love buying gifts - it doesn't matter to whom. I just enjoy the thought that they will be pretty and useful for someone. I know almost every time what to buy for whom. I do have some problems, but usually after spending a far share of time at the shops I can dissect the best buy. Today is Saint Nicholas Day and it's a huge celebration in Poland. St. Nicolas is putting little gifts for children under the pillows and it's a huge deal. When I was going to school - doesn't matter if it was primary school or high school - it was a tradition that in the class we were drawing lots two weeks before and then buying gifts anonymously to the person we were lucky (or not) to draw. There were years when I was coming home with tears because a stupid boy bought me only chocolate and a stupid decorations while others got amazing colour books and crayons. There were years when I've exchanged draws with others so I could end up buying present to one of my best friends and she was buying mine, so we went out together and I was happy to know what I would get. Today I've bought Boyfriend little something, I hope he'll like it! I've also bought little something for myself, because it was such a long, long time since I've indulged myself. And I like it!

A little something...

...for me!