Pascha!

These photos are from Paschal Vespers yesterday..we forgot the camera at the actual Paschal service. Pascha was beautiful and wonderful as always this year. I think the service wound up around 3am this year, and we left after feasting and celebrating at about 4:30am I think. Yesterday we slept in late and then headed back to Church for Paschal vespers.

I love the "feel" of Paschal vespers. I love everyone trailing in....most of us running late, but not concerned. Everyone still looking a little drowsy, but contented and happy. I love the look of the Church, still beautifully adorned, but with the addition of flower petals strewn throughout the sanctuary, from the celebration that night before (at our church, the priest throws flower petals at us during the Paschal service :-). The church looks like a huge celebration happened the night before.

We then had a big feast, lots of tasty food, then headed home to wind down for a while. Later in the evening we headed over to some friends' for a game of Settlers of Catan. It was an excellent night. We had port, wine, a bunch of cheeses we hadn't tried before, and my poor DH tried desperately to keep the game moving despite everyone's chatter and even a little dancing to MJ. Excellent. Suitably DH won, and we all agreed he deserved to win, as he's the only thing that kept the game together!

And, I think my sinus infection is finally gone; which is good, as I'm almost done the antibiotics. So, I feel renewed after Pascha, like summer is finally arriving, and mostly healthy (it's been a while!). I'm hoping that this will mean I can get back on top of all my work and school stuff, and get back on the bandwagon for my healthy eating and get back to the gym. Being sick put a crimp in all of that.

What the?!

So, at about 3am this morning, I woke up. I thought "why am I awake?" (I rarely wake up once I'm asleep). Listened....no, no cat clawing at the door...no, no husband up and moving around. Why am I...AH! I suddenly felt SO ill I can't even explain it. Once before my stomach felt this bad, and it was when I had a horrible flu and a fever of 104. It was so sudden! So, I was up, sick, for the next two hours. I won't share the details (TMI for blogging relationships), but I could NOT believe how suddenly and crazy sick I was! I crawled on to the couch, not wanting to go too far, and after about 2 hours or so I think, I fell back asleep on the couch. Woke up this morning with stomach in tact, but feeling really drowsy and with actually sore stomach muscles!

I didn't have a fever or anything, so it must have been some type of food poisoning...but I can't think from what? I didn't eat much yesterday, and no meat, seafood, or anything else like that that typically causes food poisoning. Weird. So, now, at 1pm I've finally showered and am drowsily trying to get myself sorted out and complete the work I have to do today.

Of course this happens the morning before Pascha! Ug! I will try to nap later today I think. DH looked very tired this morning as well...so I'm wondering if my being up kept him up. He trooped off to Church, but I stayed home. Maybe we will both nap later today after work and Pascha preparations are done. It's kind of sad though...I don't feel much like picking out goodies for our Pascha baskets! Hopefully by later in the day I will :-).

So...today:
- Work on conference presentation
- Finish work for one of my clients
- Try to go into on-site work for a couple of hours
- Buy food for Pascha baskets
- Tidy house so it's nice and clean when we get home
- Decide what to wear for Pascha.

Definately I will start thinking about the wardrobe early. Last night, I decided I wanted to dress up a bit for the Holy Friday service. I preceeded to try on about 10 outfits, all of which looked not right, ended up wearing everyday clothes and feeling gross and frustrated. But then, at Church, a wonderful person told me I looked really great tonight. I didn't look amazing or really any different than normal...but it's like she knew I needed the boost :-). So thanks, A.

Update

Well, I finshed the paper and sent it off, for better or for worse (I'm feeling like it's more likely the latter). Yesterday was one of "those" days. I woke up late, started work on my paper. At about 11:30am I hit print, showered, got all my materials together for work and headed out for a team meeting. Realized on the way there that I hadn't eaten at all, ran the 3.5 hour training session, picked D. up from work, buzzed to post office to mail paper, then went to Church. Church was good. I love presanctified litrugies, and I hate when I don't get to many of them during lent.

I was going to go into work after Church, but just couldn't do it. Feeling too gross. Came home, ate, crashed.

I am supposed to go to the mainland this weekend for a conference, but am debating not going. I've paid for it and am supposed to be driving people over, so not sure if this will work out, but I just am so behind and so tired and not healthy yet and need the weekend to recoup and catch up. Not to mention, the following weekend it Pascha, and then I'm back on the mainland the weekend after that! I think I need to get to the Dr. to get antibiotics, as it feels like this cold has become a sinus infection (I always get them, not a big deal), but I can't see any time to actually go to the Dr. before the weekend either!

We will see.

I'm also feeling a very big draw to clean. My kitchen is a disaster, the rest of the house is messy, as I haven't been home much the last two days, and have been working on my paper whenever I was, so things have deteriorated into quite a state of disaray. Can't see anytime to clean either, if I'm going to the mainland.

But, my husband just brought me a fresh cup of coffee. That is good.

My Hero

Can you tell I'm writing a paper? Procrastination!!! Back to writing! I will master this dance though. Yes I will.

Much ado about nothing.

Much has been happening lately, which is probably why I haven't had time to blog about it. I don't have time right now, but am of course procrastinating. I think it's been too much to catch up on in one blog though.

Most recently I spent the second of three consecutive weekends on the mainland. This weekend was supposed to be two days of work for me, then a wedding on Sunday. I started getting sick on Thursday, by the end of work on Friday was feeling pretty horrible, and by Saturday was dead on my feet. I still went to work, and got back to my in-laws and collapsed. Needless to say we didn't go to the wedding on Sunday. I was so sad not to go, as this was the wedding of a friend who was our only friend when we moved to MA and helped us so much!!

We came home Sunday night, and I worked all day today, and am now cramming to finish a giant lit review and research proposal that is due on Wednesday. Of course I'm cramming, of course I didn't get it done before now. Ug. SO wishing I had, as I'm still feeling pretty under the weather and would love nothing more than to just sleep.

This week is also, of course a full work-week, re-training entire teams, running assessments and more. Liturgy on Wednesday will hopefully be a blessed break. I also foolishly agreed to have a draft of my upcoming conference presentation to the supervising prof by Friday. Then Friday night I head back to the mainland to attend an all day workshop on Saturday!

Then, hard as it is to believe it will be Palm Sunday and Holy Week. How is that possible? Where did Lent go? But, that means that Pascha is coming soon, and one more school semester will be over, and it will only be a month until I go to the conference in Chicago.

So apparently this was just a post to whine about my schedule. Really - writing it all out here somehow soothes me. I don't know why, but it does :-).

I would just like to not be sick. That's all, then the rest will be managable.

Yummy pasta Salad

I had a number of veggies to clear out of my fridge and needed something for a late breakfast/early lunch. I also had a bit of cream cheese and mayonnaise left over from before lent which needed to be used up...So, here is the yummy pasta meal I made :-).

Orzo and Veggie Pasta Salad

Ingredients
4 oz (1 cup) dry orzo pasta
2 Cups Frozen Peas
2.5 Cups chopped red bell pepper
1 Cup chopped cucumber
1 Cup chopped celery
1/2 Cup chopped dry moraccan olives
1/3 Cup Minced red onion 1 1/2 Tbsp. Light mayonnaise
1/2 Tbsp Pesto
1/3 Cup light cream cheese
1 Tbsp (or to taste) balsamic vinegar
1 Tbsp Water

Directions
Cook the orzo. About half way through cooking, add the frozen peas. Meanwhile, chop up all the other vegetables and the olives. Drain Orzo and peas and rinse with cold water in a colander until cooled. Let drain. Add Orzo and peas to vegetable mixture. Make dressing: Blend mayonnaise, cream cheese, and pesto together. Add enough balsamic vinegar and water to smooth dressing out slightly. Dressing should be the same consistency as a thick ranch or ceasar dressing. Fold dressing into pasta and veggies and enjoy!! Chick peas could or feta cheese could be added for protein.
Serving size = 1 Cup
Number of Servings: 7

Nutritional Info: Amount Per Serving ,Calories: 141.6, Total Fat: 3.6 g, Cholesterol: 2.6 mg, Sodium: 186.4 mg, Total Carbs: 23.2 g, Dietary Fiber: 4.0 g, Protein: 5.6 g