Thursday Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

I'm catching my breath now. It's been a long day thus far. I drove out to Horse Country for Clericus. Good group of people, very interesting conversation. I wish it were a little more focused, but good work gets done in spite of our meanderings.

(This blogpost will now be interrupted for an annoying whine. If you want to go elsewhere for the next few lines, the management will understand.)

The drive back home was miserable. Stimulus dollars are funding much road work in this area, and the roads I need to take are being "improved." Well, they may be improved when they are done, but navigating them now certainly isn't improved, and the alternate routes are all just as bad. So it took an hour and a half to get back from the meeting.

(Whine break is now over. You may resume your normal reading.)

Several phone calls and emails to tend to pastoral matters. A trip to the grocery store. Home to clean the bathroom, iron the curtains (now minus the cat hair on them - they are on a window where the cats like to perch), straighten up other places. A long phone call with StrongOpinions, who is going through a depressive phase. The tiny moment of blissful quiet in the afternoon was a pedicure (red toenails, of course, since that's the color vestments we wear at ordination).

Wise folks take a few days away for a retreat prior to their ordination. I probably should have done that, but it doesn't seem possible given the stuff going on in the parish and elsewhere. The good news is that I will be taking a three day retreat with some of my Clergy Chick pals right after the 1st of the year. I can hardly wait! I need to learn that even as the only priest in a parish, I must make time for this for my sanity and spiritual health.

Remind me of that when I waver on doing that, will you?

P.S. I am going to be radical for the ordination and wear a cream clergy blouse, cream wool jacket, and a red skirt and red shoes. It will all be under the alb for the service anyway, but it's my little bit of protest against the notion that all clergywomen have to look like ads from the Women's Department of Brooks Brothers, plus the dog collar. And the red shoes make me smile.