More of a "Holy..." week, really

After Tuesday's activities, the rest of the week kept me fairly busy.  I made the delivery that was postponed by the weather on Wednesday, along with the scheduled pickups that were an ongoing thing.  Friday was the busiest by far, with one pickup and two deliveries out toward the Fort Worth area, fighting traffic each way.  Then, I had to come back and load the trailer for a delivery on Monday.  All told, I got about eight hours of overtime this week.  It's still better than what I was doing, because at least I get paid for EVERYTHING I do, and get overtime after my forty hours.

We celebrated my first paycheck by going to our favorite Brazilian restaurant and enjoying the rodizio dinner.  Perfectly cooked meat on skewers, brought to the table and carved ... what's not to love?  And the roasted pineapple? To DIE for.  Items like that make me wish I had a little rotisserie, so I could attempt to duplicate it.

I remember what Easter week was like when I was growing up.  Basically, from Wednesday night onward, there was lots to do.  After Wednesday's service, we (the altar boys) would rehearse for Holy Thursday, jsut refreshing on the order of the service that night and getting things ready.  After that, we went over the Good Friday morning service, with lamentations that evening.  After that night, we would get things ready for Holy Saturday, which involved the blessing of the fire and water.  In retrospect, maybe it wasn't such a good idea to give a bunch of hyperactive youth the job of getting the water ready for the mass the next day.  We were surprised things dried out as quick as they did, given the volumes of water that went seemingly everywhere.

After mass on Saturday, we would go over the order of the Easter service, after which two of the altar boys would accompany the priest as he went around and blessed the Easter food at the home of those that requested it.  It was always a treat to walk into someone's house and smell all of the wonderful food.  The day would end at the rectory, and a small dinner of the blessed food before we went home to get some sleep for the sunrise service the next day.

Easter breakfast was a big deal, and my grandparents would have a wide variety of things ready: ham, kielbasa (store-bought and  the one made at the church), eggs, homemade horseradish, farmer's cheese (which I can never find any that tastes the same as the kind my grandparents would get -- think cottage cheese pressed into a small wheel, with very little moisture), Easter bread from a nearby bakery,and the usual coffee, tea, or whatever you preferred to drink.  Grandma, Mom, and I would go back for the more sparsely attended service at the normal time -- Mom and Grandma in the choir, me at the altar.

I don't get to church much, mainly because there are no churches of my faith here in Texas, but I do my best to uphold the Easter breakfast.  It's one of the few traditions I observe, and it takes me back to those earlier days.

Dinner tonight is a crock-pot lasagna from a recipe I got here, and because I'm a tinkerer, I made a few small alterations to the original recipe.  It smells wonderful, and in a few hours we'll see how it tastes.

If you celebrate it, I hope your Easter was a good one.  For the rest, I hope you had a great Sunday.