Lots of stuff at church: Bell Choir played (it went well), I had to do the offering part of the service (the minister was getting changed back after doing the baptism), I served as Elder.
Palm Sunday, as we have every year. Sang "All Glory, Laud, and Honor" while the kids processed around waving palm branches*. As happens every year. And there's something to me that's so good about that - the idea that something I did as a kid, and my mom probably did as a kid, and that goes back a long time, is still going on, even in the weird world we live in now, even with all the changes that have happened. I suppose in a way I am getting to be a bit of a Grumpy Old now, while my annoyance at everything that seems loud and bright and distracting, and the loss of the quiet things I remember from childhood (though I suppose they still exist; I suppose some kids still make actual paper dolls (I mean, out of paper) and sew doll clothes and climb trees and make dollhouses out of old cardboard boxes and the like). It's nice to see a few things eight-year-old me would recognize hanging on.
(*Edited to add: they went up the center aisle, across both sides of the front, back through the side aisles. The minister referred to it - and claimed the Anglicans really do call it this - as "the holy pretzel" which made me giggle)
This week is Holy Week. Really, it picks up on Thursday (feeling almost as if we left off from Ash Wednesday, then went through Lent - and no, I didn't keep up my Lenten practice perfectly, though I can say I have not been *out shopping* in Sherman since the start of Lent). We have Maundy Thursday service at church. I am a reader but don't have to serve at the table and I am just as glad because I remember a very fraught Maundy Thursday a dozen or so years ago where I was delivering a prayer specifically referencing the events of Good Friday and I....just hit a wall. Started to cry, out of nowhere. (Granted, yes, one of my colleagues lost a spouse suddenly earlier that week, and it had been a long semester and I was tired, but...sudden tears like that, out of the blue, are a little scary to me).
And Sunday is Easter. (And I am doing a reading at the Easter service but am pretty sure I am not serving at the table)
I got home from church and hung around home for a while. Made the piccadillo for lunch, then decided I better go over and arrange to get the soil for today's lab and also finish reading the papers for my meeting with the stats student today. That took me until pretty late (Long papers, and I spend time faffing around).
When I got home - close to 5 - it was such a nice day and also I felt like I needed to do a little yard clean-up.
(There is another reason for this. A couple I know, who both have birthdays right around this time have invited me to come out to dinner with them - their treat. They say this is a "tradition" they have. I admit, I am *slightly* weirded out by the idea but not enough to come up with a gracious way to say "no." And anyway, they want to do a nice thing, right? Anyway, one member of the couple is someone who was big in the beautification council when I was on it, and while I doubt they'd say anything or even *think* anything, still, I feel bad about how messy my yard is and how unkempt.)
So I spent not quite an hour cutting back shrubs - mostly the right front side of the house, especially trimming back the abelia, with the thought of later on getting more soil for the garden area in front of it and doing bedding plants again like I used to.
(Really, what I want to do? Hire someone to put in paving stones - doing it the RIGHT way so they stay -on the path I've worn in front of that garden walking from my car to my door, and extend the garden up to the paving stones/path so I have less to mow. And maybe do something similar on the other side.)
I didn't get that far yesterday but I did decide that if I got a good start, I'd put the shepherd's crooks back and get some hanging baskets for them. (I wound up with a "zonal geranium," a callibranchoa, a scented geranium, and some kind of white thing that I'm not familiar with the species of, but claims it's good for full sun - that area gets hot and dry ) I went to Lowe's and I'm relieved to see that they've apparently phased out neonictinoids (aka the bad-for-bees pesticides) because part of the reason I wanted these plants was for pollinators to have something to feed on - not much right now.
But yeah. It felt kind of good to be doing that even if I didn't get as much knitting indoors done as I had hoped over the weekend. Really, what I would like to do is get home early enough at least a couple days a week from now on and put in a half-hour or so cutting brush and stuff. It's reasonably good exercise, for one thing, and it also gets me out in the sun and fresh air (and yes, the pollen, but hopefully that will decline soon, or at least the tree pollen will) and it feels purposeful. And you can see what you've done - unlike a lot of the work-work I do, where you're never *really* done until you're so sick of it you can't feel as happy once it IS done (like publishing articles).
And yeah, it will make my house look better.
I just have the hanging baskets for now but maybe if I can get out from under my work a little bit and maybe spend part of Saturday working (finally the weather is supposed to be good), I could do the soil addition plus some kind of bedding plants and have that as a thing.
(A little late maybe for any vegetable gardening though maybe I do try tomatoes again this year, I don't know. Or maybe I just plant more annuals in the raised beds and just have flowers this year)
I did get a bit more done on the "Socks for the Deputy Headmistress" and part of a leg crocheted for Ocellus. But again this week will be busy in the evening: the dinner tonight, interviews late tomorrow afternoon, more on Wednesday, and then the Maundy Thursday service. At least I have Friday off.
ETA: This is my choice of outfit for tonight. I looked up the restaurant we are going to online and wow, it is very fancy (or at least the prices are. The cheapest non-salad item is a $28 Wagyu beef burger). I hope I am dressed OK. It is in a casino and a friend tells me that the "gamers" dress very casually but I don't know.
at this point I don't own any very formal clothes; 90% of the places I go are work are church and I am often the most formally dressed there. But this is a cotton dress I made, topped with a lace jacket scavenged off another dress because I decided the terry jacket (also handmade) that I usually wear with this dress has gotten too tatty (I really need to make myself a new easily-washed white jacket/sweater)
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