Temptation

Yesterday I complained about the paper I was using. A good friend of mine told me to embrace the torn look and just go with it, and I have, but other thoughts have crept in with it. I thought about it some more and realized the torn look wasn't the problem at all. It was my impatience at taking the tape away and my craving for the clean lines of the finished border. I was tempted to take the tape too soon, but I took it anyway and my impatience created something beautiful, yet not what I really wanted.

Temptation is a horrible beast. It gets in the way of good health, sanity and relationships of all kinds. When food is concerned, Fat Tuesday falls tomorrow, and I will probably eat just as I usually do, but there is definitely one of these cupcakes left in the kitchen. And strawberries just begging to be dipped in chocolate. And marshmallows waiting to be melted into smores bars. These things are tempting, but what is it I really want?

Ugh. 

It's not a good time to start a diet, but temptation needs to be taught a lesson of restraint and Lent begins on Wednesday. The season of lent is forty days of reeling in the things that tempt us and obeying the discipline the Holy Father hopes for us. In response, my intention is to allow sweets on the weekend and only fruity sweets during the week and that means minus the chocolate. 

Wait. We are supposed to give it up for forty days? Well, yes, and my personal story right now means that giving sweets up for five days a week is definitely a sacrifice. I intend to lead myself into a place of better health with God's help. It's just that recently I feel like I could just eat all of it, no matter what it is, and then eat it all again. Everything just tastes so good! I hear the reel tugging my line to pull it in and exercise restraint in order to fully enjoy the excess. 

I've been tempted to draw, or paint, a cupcake because I've been inspired by another MeetUp friend. She paints luscious cupcakes that look like the ones I have to eat. Yes, have to. Today marked the second cupcake I have tackled in my career. It was a struggle and it did not come easily. I had to give up the temptation to pull the tape and finish it quickly. Instead, I waited for the color to dry every once in awhile, photographed it, then compared it again and again to the picture of the cupcake and then made changes as needed. 

I'm very happy with the way the actual cake part turned out inside the wrapper. I am not sold on the frosting, but I will look into more "subjects" in the following weekends. I look forward to further studies of goodies and will be posting this for the theme of "sweets" on the Sketchbook Challenge Flickr page, as well as the Creative Every Day Challenge site for "light" in February.