Weekend Plans Post: The Last Weekend Before Lent
I got a message in google chat saying “you know that Ash Wednesday is next week, right?” and, yes, I guess I knew that in the back of my head.
There are years when Easter comes early (like in 2008, it was the second earliest possible date) and years when Easter comes late (like in 2011, where it was the second latest possible date) and we happen to be in a year where it comes kinda late (in the last possible week it can happen in) which means that Lent happens later in the year which means that, oh yeah. It’s March and Ash Wednesday is next week.
Which means that this weekend is Last Stop For Carbs. Donuts at work on Friday morning, Pizza on Friday night, maybe see if we can’t squeeze a visit to Olive Garden in there somewhere during the weekend.
We also have tabletop gaming on Saturday night and, thanks to hitting all of the big stores last weekend, we only have to get normal grocery staples this weekend (note to self: pick up that French bread that the store has delivered to it from the little French bakery) and that gives us that much more time for carb-loading. (Oooh, we should bring an ice cream cake to gaming on Saturday night!)
And then, to close out the weekend, the usual chores to tie everything together with a nice bow. (And prepare for Tuesday night’s date with Maribou at the IHOP.)
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is “I Gave Me Some Pancakes” by Nate Steiner. Used under a creative commons license.)
Oog, I have to figure out if I’m going to do anything for Lent. (Last year, I had bloodwork coming due right towards the end, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and give up added sugars…In the past I have done things like try to work on not getting annoyed at people – not very successful, that – or doing more “spiritual reading” in a day)
There is a pancake breakfast at the campus Wesley center, and there’s a pancake dinner planned at church on Tuesday. But the weather here is supposed to get treacherously bad so one of both of those might not happen.
As for this weekend, my main task is serving at a memorial service lunch for one of the long term members (she died earlier this year but this was the first weekend the whole family could be assembled. I find memorial services a bit easier than funerals; you’ve had more time to process whatever grief and also there’s not a coffin right there staring you in the face, so to speak). I need to make something kind of like scalloped potatoes, which I admit I have never made in my life. I have a recipe but I am modifying it – it calls for cream of chicken soup but I think I am going to make my own half-cream-sauce, half-chicken-broth sauce because us kitchen ladies eat some of the food as our lunch, and I have allergies to stuff in commercial canned soup…
Other than that, probably just gonna stay home and knit, the weather here has been and promises to continue being, grey, rainy, and unpleasantly cold.Report
We’re flying to Brazil tomorrow. I’ve gotten past the point where I don’t really believe we’re going, to the part where I don’t realize how soon it is. Suppose I should pack or something.Report
@dragonfrog Safe travels! And I hope you have a fabulous time.Report
@dragonfrog have a great trip!
Some catch up grading this weekend–homework assignments and entering the grades of projects for midterm reporting next week. Probably some streaming–netflix and amazon-with the wife.
Next week will be frantic grading and prepping for a conference the week after, so I need to relax and recharge a bit.Report
There is a biker cantina holding a charity cook-off this weekend a few miles to the north. Probably catch up with the Bandidos that show and sample some fine south texas BBQ. Looks like the weather is going to suck this weekend.Report
Heading out of town to take a breather after some pretty devastating medical news for Mrs. Slade. The next year is not going to be fun for either of us.Report
Good luck, my man. Best of luck to you both.Report
Thank you very much, sirReport
Crunching through the fresh layers of white.
That is to say, salt.
There’s maybe a 1/4 inch of snow on the cars, and a thick coating of salt on every paved surface. If you listen closely, you can probably hear it rotting through the concrete.
I don’t know what I’m doing this weekend; it depends on the weather, but they’ve gotten the forecasts wrong all week. I’ve got to spend some time outdoors, though, to make up for last weekend.Report
For Lent, I’m giving up twitter for 40 days. For this weekend, I’m purging. My closets, my backyard, poundage on a treadmill…on Sunday I’m baking sweet orange danishes, veggie fritatas, with hazelnut coffee, and a bloody mary, returning my easter palm crosses, repent for the numerous mistakes I made on twitter, fattening up on Tuesday, going to the gym…fasting on Ash Wednesday.
When you put it all together It seems dysfunctional.Report
@tracy-downey It sounds like a good (if somewhat intense) plan to me :).Report
For Lent I’m muttermumblemuttermutter. (Not private, but due to some effects it could possibly, though not probably, have on other people, I’m embargoing myself on discussion of it until the 15th of March.)
That thing is huge enough, and waiting till the 15th has been hard enough for the last 2 months, that if I make it through the season intact, it’ll feel like an appropriate sacrifice and a half.
I’ll probably also do my best to get my life in order in various ways that involve giving stuff up and letting things go, but that’s definitely a secondary priority for me.
This weekend involves mostly what Jaybird said. Looking forward to gaming.
Very much looking forward to a couple days of not having to be on. I love my job but when I’m worn out from other matters, it’s hard to put on that performative shell and be who I need to be to do a good job of being at work in a public-facing position. Taking some days off after the 15th for that reason.Report
I was supposed to have jury duty this week, but nothing came of it, so I got that going for me, which is nice. As for lent, dunno, maybe give up donuts?Report
As a practicing Lutheran who was born and raised Catholic, I’ve always been mystified by the pancake thing. Who thought it would be a good idea to preface 40 days of self-denial with flapjacks? There are a lot of things wrong with the Catholic Church, but Mardi Gras ain’t one of them.Report
Well, you have all this butter and fat in the house, see….. and you wouldn’t want them to just go rancid sitting around 40 days without being eaten, see…. so obviously you have no *choice* (shrugging my shoulders innocently with wide eyes) but to eat as much fat-filled food as possible in the days leading up to lent and blow every last bit of it on Mardi Gras. And what’s better at using up butter than pancakes? ;).
(Seriously, where I grew up, this kind of joking around – and accompanying giant amounts of delicious buttery baking, from butter tarts to mincemeat pies to scones with clotted cream, as well as more mundane delights like hot buttered biscuits with blueberry-peach jam, and 1 million kind of cookies – it all starts about 2 days after Epiphany. Which, non-coincidentally, is about when the Christmas baking runs out :P.)Report
What Maribou said. In Slavic/Polish communities, big gooey donuts (paczki is one spelling of the name) were the thing. Where I grew up, Tuesday before Lent meant either pancakes or paczki depending on your heritage…
I wonder if Orthodox Christians (and other groups that give up meat*) have a giant BBQ the day before Ash Wednesday
(*I don’t know if all Orthodox Christians give up meat for Lent, but the ones I know do. My brother and his family – Anglicans – also did it one year. I….tend more to be about trying to wrestle with the not-so-great parts of my personality and how I interact with others than with big dietary changes)Report