Sweet Sunday

I got up early today - the 2nd day in a row. Since my damn alarm goes off at 5:30 AM Monday thru Friday, I so look forward to sleeping in on the weekends. But my body has been aching a lot lately and I've decided it's better for my body to be up doing stuff rather than getting more stiff by lying in bed.

And for some reason, the song "Sunday Sweet Sunday" just popped in to my head. My father, who will be 85 next week, used to sing it all the time. I know it was a love song ("Sunday, sweet Sunday, with nothing to do...Lazy and lovely, my one day with you...") - but I just prefer the lazy and lovely part (not that I don't want to spend my Sundays with David, but lazy and lovely is just very appealing to me).

As a kid, I don't think I fully appreciated what a Sunday could offer. I thought of Sundays as kind of a boring day. Of course in those days, nothing was open on a Sunday, so it probably was boring for a kid.

Now that I am middle aged, but often feel quite old, I take great joy in the laziness of a Sunday. We have kind of a tradition where David goes out and gets hot bagels. There is NOTHING like a hot bagel and coffee on a Sunday morning, settling down to read a Sunday paper.

It's a little off topic, but I will always remember one weekend morning many years ago when my son Joe was a toddler. I was in a bad mood, it was a gray and rainy day, and I made both of us some rye bread toast. I went up to my room to eat mine in solitude. He came upstairs, stood at my bedside with his toast, and announced quite happily "it's nice to eat rye toast on a rainy day." And my heart melted for this little kid who could find joy in such a simple thing.

Maybe it wasn't off-topic. Sunday is a day to find joy in the simple things. I just put up a pot with ham hocks to boil, and I will add split green peas, onion, barley and carrots. Sunday is the day I try to cook something that will cook all day, so that I'm not scrambling at the last minute to put dinner on the table. It is a slow, peaceful day.

I like to read the paper slowly, maybe catch up on magazines, cut out coupons, read my favorite blogs, and read the emails I don't have time for during the week (like the NY Times that comes daily via email). It's not a day to zoom through my tasks so that I can drive off to work. Everything is just in slow motion. I guess these days slow motion is very appealing.

So I'm off to enjoy this Sunday, sweet Sunday. I know I will find things to do, but it's nice that I don't have to do any of them.

And that soup is starting to smell delicious.