Sundays

I happen to love Sundays. They're always full of time to pray and read and I never feel tons of stress to work on my papers. One of the few times I don't have that stress. Today has turned out to be another wonderful amazing Sunday.

When I woke up I could hear birds singing. "Well that's not so odd and noteworthy" you think... but it is. I live in Oxford, which rains. Constantly. All the time. 24/7. Non-stop. So very few birds just hanging around chirping. I immediately felt inspired to actually climb out bed (something that's hard to do on the tenth gray/rainy day in a row) and peeked outside. I saw sunrays hitting the row of houses across from us! What?! It's a miracle! The happiness for the day just bubbled up inside. Not only was it sunny, but I had timed getting ready perfectly. I hate mornings with either too much time or too little time to get ready. Really throws me off my game.

But the day only continued to improve. I actually caught the correct bus into city centre so I could go to church, and St. Ebbe's family service, was as always, really lovely. I had three new people come up and introduce themselves (always a nerve-wracking experience for me, but I'm getting better at it) and someone Megan and I had met last week came over to check on us and make sure we were well. When you're surrounded by that much Christian Love, how can you help smiling?

After a quick run to Sainsbury's I decided to actually cook for once in my paper-filled life, and made a full-fledged pasta lunch with cheese sauce. I may finally have corn pasta down to a fine art, but it's definitely taken some serious practice. I've also learned that corn penne is better than corn spaghetti. Good lesson to learn. The last two months of non-stop papers have finally taught me how to balance a little better, but I had almost forgotten I actually LIKE cooking. I just never have time.

The sun was still miraculously shining bright after lunch, so I decided to take a little walk. Being out in the sunshine after so many days of pouring rain really lifted my spirits, and I actually feel ready to tackle this week.
I totally discovered a teensy cute little village too. South Hinsky. It was wonderful and precious, and the village hall in the center of the village was so stereotypically "Small English Village" that I almost laughed.

I'm currently trying to work up motivation to actually write my two papers that are due on Wednesday, and fighting the urge to go back outside. Fortunately it's 4:15, and the sun will go down soon and squash that urge for me.

:-P