Ordinary Time

My daughter was telling me how she was learning about Semana Santa (Holy Week in Spain) at school. This left me pondering how eventful Holy Week was when I was a kid, growing up Catholic. The big countdown to Easter, full of drama. Easter, the biggest day on the Church’s calendar, forget about Christmas. The treachery of the Last Supper. The somber solemnity of Good Friday and the Stations of the Cross. The utter weirdness of Holy Saturday. (Where exactly in the space-time continuum was Jesus, at this point?) Masses would be longer because there would be all these stories to read for the Gospel, stories we knew by heart but were excited to hear again. After Easter, it was still considered a special season up until Pentecost. Then, as the missal instructed, we reverted back to  “Ordinary Time.” Ordinary Time lasted all through summer and fall, up to Advent. If Ordinary Time had a theme or a plan, it was lost on me; it felt like the readings and the priest’s homilies reverted to random, like someone flipped through the Bible and picked passages will nilly.

(I spent a lot of time reading through the missal during boring homilies. I was very familiar with the missal and how the time periods were set up. There is also “Ordinary Time” between Christmas and Ash Wednesday.)

In my line of work, I encounter “defined terms.” These are terms in a contract that have meanings specific to it and are capitalized, like “Business Day” or “Phase 1 Deliverable.” To see “Ordinary Time” capitalized into being its own season seems like an oxymoron, at least at first.

But looked at another way, it makes perfect sense. Ordinary Time is special in its own way. A day or stretch of days that isn’t devoted to preparing for some day in the future, but is just enjoyed and lived on its own terms.

And no longer being a practitioner of any religion, I guess I’m full time OT these days. But I do miss the contrast, the highs and lows, of that liturgical calendar.

***

And now back to that most ordinary of subjects, what we ate:

Sunday: Took a chance and made a cheesy pasta and broccoli bake that most of us liked!

Monday: Chicken cutlets, leftover pasta bake, corn, stuffing

Tuesday: Chinese takeout (really, Chinese, Thai and Japanese)

Wednesday: Frozen pizza from Aldi

Thursday: Scrounge (I had tuna)

Friday: Chick Fil A

Saturday: Scrounge for the kids, dinner out for the grownups.

Obviously, not our best week. Lunches weren’t much better (bought twice, brought leftovers once). My only excuse is that work was really busy this week. And this week looks to be the same. But at least we have some Easter dinner leftovers.

Last Sunday, I had a pretty good haul from Acme (saved 22%). I also baked bread using a new no-knead recipe; it was pretty good but a bit under done — I need to start checking it with a thermometer.

I was able to pot on my herb seedlings and to put other seedlings outside for a while. I realized I have oregano growing in multiple random spots, which is fun. Tom did not start the fence that day but he DID start it yesterday and I am super excited.

Yesterday was perfect weather for fence building and gardening. I got a lot of compost extracted from my pile and added it where needed. I also was able to transplant some of the onions and the potato.

New sprouts: another of the potato pieces I planted a while back; Scarlet Nantes carrots, and the strawberry plant that I thought was dead.

Some plants did not survive the rather harsh winter we had; there’s been no signs of life from the rosemary shrub or the Shasta daisies, unfortunately.

Despite all the eating out, we did have some small wins this week:

• We continue to make do with one vehicle (although Tom is grumbling).
• F. brought home a rubber Frisbee from career day (from a vet) and Rocco loves it.
• F. also went to a church event that had free activities and food (she did have to submit her email address for future outreach efforts)
• I used collected rain water to water plants and seedlings.
• I experimented with using dead pine needles and some other dried up materials as mulch, but will need more.  I’m pretty sure I can get some for free from our public works yard.
• I didn’t go overboard on Easter baskets. $20 each and some chocolate, and a college T-shirt for T. Virtually all of the chocolate was from local favorite Aunt Charlotte’s.

It’s late so I’ll stop here. Kids are off this week, but not me…