Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Sunday, May 15, 2016

Saturday and Sunday

When I made my Saturday to-do-list it occurred to me I've been making the same list for as long as I remember. Some of this goes back to my childhood I think.

As a child my mother did not work outside the home but still Saturdays were always the same. We spent Saturdays preparing for Sunday. Mother always washed my hair and put it up in bobbie pin curls or pink sponge rollers. She prepared what food she could for the Sunday dinner. We cleaned house on Saturday. She gathered what she could from the garden because she would not be back there before Monday.

Then Sunday came, the longest most boring day of the week. It was church in the morning, Sunday dinner, a nap, read the Sunday paper, then back to church at 6:00 p.m. for Training Union and another worship service. All the stores in town were closed. There was no TV to watch. To this day I hate Sundays.

These days I have no reason to clean house on Saturdays. Why don't I clean house on Monday or Tuesday? It just doesn't seem right. Of course, these days it takes only and hour or so to clean house but still I hang on to doing it on Saturday.

One rule I made for myself when I retired was to stay out of stores on Saturday and Sunday. I figure there's noting more irritating to a busy working person than to get in a log jam in a grocery store aisle while some blue haired woman, or an old man on a cane, read labels. Worse yet is meeting an old person driving a motorized basket through the store. Let workers shop in peace. I can shop during the week.

Sunday is still the longest most boring day of the week for me. I don't do the church thing anymore but still Sunday time drags. These days I can do just about anything on Sunday that I do any other day of the week. Still I hate it.

Do you feel any different about Saturday and Sunday than the other days of the week?

23 comments:

  1. It's funny, but even though I am retired, Saturdays and Sundays do feel different to me. The change is that I now look forward to Monday! Monday means I can look forward to my usual classes at the Y, which I enjoy for the exercise but also for the socialization. Growing up, our Sundays looked a lot lot yours did. I think that was a pretty typical pattern for that era.

    Like you, I don't enjoy shopping on the weekend. Parking lots and stores are way too busy for my liking.

    I do a little cleaning every day so that it never feels like a huge chore.

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    1. I also look forward to Monday now!! Monday's probably my favorite day of the week. I dread the approaching week-ends.

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  2. For a long time now, every day is about the same. I try to keep my mind busy.

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    1. Don't know if that will ever happen for me. It's been many years and Saturday and Sunday still feel different.

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  3. People are creatures of habit and routine. As we age, it's a good thing to have a routine, we always know where we're at and that adds a measure of stability and calmness. Same for kids. LOL My Sundays always include doing the laundry, watering the plants, taking the trash out and the paper in and planning the coming week. Sometimes I go to the grocery store, otherwise I save that for Mondays.

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    1. Yes, routine sometimes brings comfort and stability. I'd settle for a little excitement on Sundays if I had the chance.

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    2. You could always hop on a table top and do a strip tease.

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    3. Sorry, that wouldn't do a thing for Bob, and I'd probably fall off the table and break a leg.

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  4. My Sundays were much like yours, except I had to endure only one stint at church. I remember Sunday afternoon naps with my mother. Sundays were very long days. One time my grandparents were visiting, and it was Sunday. Stupidly my sister and I took out a deck of cards and began a game of Rummy or something. My mother walked behind me and snatched the cards from our hands in one fell swoop. We were NOT to play cards on Sunday, especially if my mother's parents were visiting! And regarding your last post, we had dinner at noon and supper at night. I've had to train myself to refer to the evening meal as "dinner," because classier people call it that. To Ken I say, "What do you want for supper?" It's our dirty little secret.

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    1. Oh my, yes, get rid of those cards! My parents did not do a single thing on Sunday except church. It was literally a day of rest.

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  5. I love it. Your Sunday was so much like mine - and you're right - totally boring. I had friends in church and so that part was ok but I didn't want to get dressed and sit quietly in the pew until we were dismissed for Sunday School. There was little playing out on the street after school. I can't remember if we weren't allowed to or if it was just that most of the other kids stayed home. I'm not sure why. Wouldn't our parents enjoyed their day more if they got away from us for a little while. The nap though was the best part. A full belly and a Sunday nap - as good as it gets.

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    1. I sometimes was allowed to invite a friend home for the afternoon but not always. We had a family in the community with 10 children and those kids would go home with anybody that asked them. Mother kept a firm hand on that situation. They had several girls about my age. I have no desire to go back to those days of my life.

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  6. I had the same experience as you for Sundays. I'd through in a Sunday School. I don't do church either.

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    1. I hung in there with that church stuff until my mother was gone and I said no more of that. We have a church here that's, I believe they call themselves humanists, or something like that. They no longer do church but they still meet at that same time only to hear a speaker of some kind because they say that time is programed in them to attend something. Not me, that's one of the reasons I was glad to quit church, I hated having to get up and hurry around to get to church on time.

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  7. We did church twice on Sunday too. I realize now that my parents really needed that day of rest, but for us kids, it was boring. We would beg our dad to take us on one of his famous drives "Searching for lost lake". We never found it.
    Sunday feels more special to me know than it used to. I don't have to get dressed up and go to church. I don't have to worry about going back to teaching Monday morning. We try to stay away from crowds but we may visit a garden or take a destination walk.

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    1. Sunday drives, I'd forgotten all about those. Yes we used to do those, also visit family cemeteries on Sunday afternoons. Nature is a wonderful place to be every day. Mondays are now my favorite days. I'm eager to get Sundays over with and get on to starting a new week on Monday.

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  8. I love the weekends and they do feel 'different' from a weekday! You must have gone to a Baptist church with 'Training Union!'
    I have gone to church my whole life but it was different for me. At first we went as a family and then only I would go and take my siblings. In 1957 our lives changed drastically when Mother left Daddy and we were thrown into a dark world. We moved every single year and sometimes more than once. Wherever we lived, I would walk my sisters and brothers to the closest church. I loved church even though the churches seldom loved us. We were poor raggedy kids and I can't remember anyone being really nice to us. Still we went because I was going because of my love for Jesus. Not for the church. Later in life I was a Sunday School teacher and paid extra special attention to the kids who rode the church bus. I wore my best clothes and gave them quality attention because they were important! It wasn't childhood experiences that soured me on 'church' but my ex husband who was super 'religious' while living a double life of wickedness! Still, I love the Lord and as long as I am physically able, I will attend church on Sundays. I'm glad it's only morning morning services, though!!

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    1. I meant BROTHER as in ONE!!!

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    2. Linda, I was indeed a Baptist! You remember the Southern Baptist Convention had a major problem with fundamentalism back in the 80s. It was such a painful experience that to this day I cry when I think about it. In spite of that I worked 17 years at Brite Divinity School on the campus of TCU and enjoyed my time there. When we moved to Oregon there was of course no Southern Baptist Church so I visited a very nice church here, a United Church of Christ/Congregational church. One day sitting in the Sunday morning service there I realized the church experience was over for me and I haven't been back.

      Oh yes, I remember bus ministries, and they did often pick up children who needed love and acceptance. I also remember churches seldom engaged with those children and their families.

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  9. I have always hated Sunday's.....boring long and often a wasted day. When I worked I did shift work and always wanted to work Sundays. And yes you can pretty much do the same thing as any other day, but somehow it just feels different. I think if I had grown up with always having a big long Sunday dinner with all the family and had carried that on into my own life,I might have felt differently.

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    1. Sunday dinner was good but oh those long boring afternoons. They stretched on for ever and ever. Also had to stay clean and in Sunday clothes because you had to go back to church in the evening.

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  10. I'm like you about not shopping on the weekends and for the same reasons. Sunday is my laundry day and often house cleaning day. Thank goodness for baseball for it is usually a day game.

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    1. I've never watched a baseball game in my life. I'm not a sports person. Bob washes everyday around here. It's not hard to keep our place clean these days but I seem to be compelled to vacuum and do my bathroom on Saturday.

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