Busy Sunday

As a practicing Christian, I understand that Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest. The Scriptural references to this are numerous --- Genesis 2:2-3 and Exodus 20:8 just to name two. Yet, somehow, come Sunday, I just can’t manage to meet the goal of peaceful relaxation.

Today, for example, I got up at 5:30 AM (30 minutes late if you ask my cats), fed the lovely beasties, completed my daily priorities list, checked my online mail, read the news, took my probiotic supplements, signed up with Constant Contact to publish the CHOOSE CT newsletter online, and watched “The Beltway Boys” on Fox News, all before 7:00 AM. At that point, I realized the glaring absence of a morning devotional in my day, so I grabbed my Bible and read through the book of James. My daughter and I are working through this book in a homeschool co-op, so when my reading was completed, I printed out two copies of James, Chapter 2 for later inductive analysis.

By that time, it was 7:30 AM, the last reasonable hour to begin processing churchgoers through the shower without a lot of stress and “verbal encouragement.“ Why is it that Sunday morning seems more deadline driven than any other morning? I ran through the shower in ten minutes, leaving enough hot water for other family members to clean up without waiting for the water heater to recover. I spent ten more minutes completing my “beauty routine,” or rather my anti-aging ritual, and got dressed.

While waiting for Katherine the Great and King Richard III to spruce up for the day, I updated my Quicken account, gathered my church/Sunday School items, checked my church offering calendar (man, Lent is coming fast!), checked my Saturday blog statistics on Sitemeter, called Applebee’s to complete a customer survey (much too long), worked on this blog entry, and checked my online mail one more time to make certain no last-minute church messages came through. Crazy, I know. What can I say, early morning is a VERY productive time for me!

At 9:15 AM, my daughter and I were out the door, headed for Dunkin Donuts. Where else would I go for a quick breakfast? “America Runs On Dunkin,” after all. Two bagels, one hot tea, and one hot chocolate later, we were on our way to church. My hubby opted out of the church schedule. As the morning progressed, he wasn’t feeling well, the victim of a caffeine-withdrawal headache. Sunday School was a discussion of Christian music; 11:00 AM worship was short (no communion this week); the Family Ministry meeting went a little long.

Exiting the church at 2:00 PM, I checked on my husband who was still under the weather so, teenager in tow, I headed to Russell’s Ribs for lunch. I knew I could get a decent-sized hamburger there with “real” vegetables on the side --- boiled collard greens and sweet potatoes --- instead of the gigantic burgers and fries sold at many other restaurants. With nothing but a bagel in my stomach, I was really rather hungry for protein. Being Sunday, I did indulge in a slice of peanut butter/chocolate pie that I shared with Katherine the Great. After lunch, I ran a quick errand to Kohl’s in search of Valentine’s Day socks (believe it or not, part of a Christmas gift) and a new bra, a successful effort that put us home in less than 30 minutes.

Once I was home, the pace settled down a bit, but I still had work to do: wash the new towels (2 loads), wash the new shower curtain (1 load), fold and stow all that clean laundry, prepare my chess lesson for CHOOSE CT Co-op tomorrow, do my assigned reading in Messenger for CHOOSE CT Book Club, call my mother, call my friend DC, work on this blog entry, and clean up the kitchen after my family made nachos for a late evening snack (no one was really hungry for a full-blown dinner, so we made munchies instead). By midnight, I called it quits. Tomorrow is another day with another list. Next week, though, I will try again for a Sunday of peaceful relaxation.