The reason for my brief blogging during the Easter Triduum is 1) I was at church a lot, 2) I was baking a lot, and 3) I was tired a lot. In fact, I'm still pretty tired, as evidenced by this very morning, in which I slept until 9:20 a.m.--later than I have slept in months. I'm afraid I missed Angele calling me for morning prayer. I'm really sorry, Angele! My alarm did wake me up, at 6:11, but somehow I drifted back to sleep. Then my sister's alarm woke me up at 6:20, and I realized that I had missed you...so I went back to sleep again. Anyway, it must not be very interesting to hear about my sleeping habits, so I'll get started on how this long weekend went.

On Friday, I did the majority of my baking. I baked Vegetarian Cake, Greek Easter Cookies from Smyrna, and Peanut Butter Cookies. I also got dressed and went to the 3 p.m. liturgical service, at which I had to lector. I had thought I was only scheduled to read the "voice" part of the Passion play, but it turned out that the lector didn't show up, so I had to do the first reading as well. What else did I do Friday? Oh, I went shopping! That took a while. We got all the things we needed for the weekend, though. By the time we got back, it was dinnertime, and I was famished. I ate my usual salad, and finished making the cookies. I don't know how it happened, but I went to bed too late again. I've lost so much sleep in the past week, it's alarming.

Saturday is our usual clean-up-the-house day, so I did a bit of that. Mostly, however, I cookied for everyone. I made potato pancakes for breakfast, and veggie burgers for lunch. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen, because I also made an Apple Shortbread Pie to give to my aunt. I found time to pick up my room. We also visited our elderly neighbors on one side, to bring them some Easter treats. I put the ingredients for the Monkey Bread in the bread machine, and then I went to take a shower. It always takes me a long time to get ready for church, at least an hour, because my hair is so long and tangly and because I want my makeup to look pretty. In fact, my eye makeup was very nice, but I don't think people noticed because I wore glasses. Anyway, that's just vanity. We left for Easter Vigil Mass at 5:40 p.m., arriving around 5:50, because my dad and I were set to sing with the choir (not in, because it wasn't our usual choir, but with because we are charitable), which was set to begin practicing at 6. In fact, the choir was large and disorganized (there were 3 guitars, so you can infer a lot about it from that), and we didn't really start practicing until 7. Well, Mass began at 8, and it ended at 11. I would rather not elaborate much on what went on, because a lot of it I would much rather forget myself. Suffice it to say that although Easter Vigil is supposed to be one of the most beautiful and solemn Masses of the year, it didn't quite live up to that expectation in my case.

Yesterday, Easter Sunday, I got up early to bake the Monkey Bread (which turned out fabulous) and to get an early start in general. I was happy for much of the morning, because it really felt like a nice, joyful Easter. The kids had their Easter egg hunt, and although I thought I was too old, I ended up searching for the remainder of the eggs with my next younger sister, who is also "too old". I only found two, though. Then I got ready for Mass, because again we had to be there early, this time to practice with our choir, which is a much nicer bunch, I might add. The Mass was nice, if a little ordinary-feeling. It wasn't much different from our usual Sunday Mass, but it was good. I guess I'll finish telling you about the day later, because my mom has to use the computer now.