Number 47 on my list of 52 things to do this year was to start a swear jar and donate to it for every swear word said in a particular month. Without thinking, I decided I would tackle the task during the month of March. Typically, I had managed to select a month that was possibly the least convenient for the entire year, given that it was also the month that Brisbane Roar was in the A-League grand final. I expected to be a filthy mouthed wench during the game, but surprisingly I managed to come through with only two curses even though it was the best grand final in the history of the league, and one of the most intense. Instead of just randomly yelling swear words I just insulted the ref and whether he was blind or not Yet the mighty Roar were able to come back in the dying minutes of the game and get through to win on penalties! RROOOOAAARRR!!!

Sorry, off on a tangent again. Back to swearing.

I decided to make each swear word worth 50c, and at the end of the month rather than reward myself for cussing I opted to donate the money to charity. To help track my swearing I located and downloaded an iPhone app  (there’s an app for everything except for when the iPhone goes swimming, as Jo will tell you). The app was called iSwear, and not only could you track your swear words, but you could also use the GPS to see people nearby doing the same thing. Pretty funny.

At the end of the month, this is how it stood:

Just a note – sometimes when I had sworn consecutively rather than add each word by pressing the + sign several times instead I increased the value of the swear word and pressed + once. So while it says I only swore 79 times, the number is actually 106.

So with 31 days in March, it meant that I was swearing just over 3 times a day. If you know me in real life you would know that was showing some REAL restraint. On the day after the swear jar finished I tweeted this:

Excited much? I’ve noticed since it finished that I’ve paid more attention to when I swear, but I don’t think that’s really stopped me all that much. I noticed that by preventing myself from swearing it almost felt like I was withholding my emotions. More often than not I swear out of excitement or to show just the level of passion I’m feeling, not because I’m calling someone names (although that does happen sometimes). I tried making up a few random swear words instead, but it just wasn’t quite the same.

So fuck yeah – another 52 item done!