A Sunday

I woke at 5:30 today. My brain just turned on and we were off to the races for the day. I went downstairs to check on today's crock-pot barbecue that had been in its phase-one cooking stage all night and decided to put in more pork. Then I broke a glass and had run the vacuum at that early hour. Fortunately, no one heard me. It takes heavy equipment to wake my family on Sunday mornings, so all's well.

Said dinner smells really good as I go about the morning, which is both enjoyable and challenging since today is the day each month when I fast for a time as a form of worship. Soo-ooo I'm smelling all this porkliciousness and then trying to use it as a springboard to greater self-control and spiritual awareness. It will taste so good this afternoon, I guarantee you that, friends. That's part of the beauty of the fast. It actually feels good to wrench myself out of my constant prowl for snacks and tell my body that yes, I, the person, actually am in charge of I, the organism.

I did take some time after my silly wake-up to play some hymns on the piano, and then I snuggled up under the covers while letting some good, thought provoking religious words from here into my brain as I dozed.

Now I've put some bread into rise so we can have warm, crusty, inch-thick slices to ferry succulent barbecue to our mouths instead of just plain old kaiser rolls. I can't wait.

So far, it actually has been a day of rest. It was not always so, as you can imagine with five kids and trying to get them to appreciate a day of rest (hahahahahaha), but there are benefits to those years of crazy Sundays when the word Rest definitely had dramatic air quotes around it and the attempts happened through clenched teeth sometimes. I think now that my kids understand the reasons why we take a break from the busy, busy world for just one day a week and do other things. Different things. It is a day with a certain, specific feel to it-you wake and breathe and listen and know instantly that it's Sunday. I like that.