The Perennial Question

The perennial question is the one that asks what the next week holds. To put it more, mm, informally would be to say that it is the question where one says to one's self, "Self? What am I doing this week?"

I ask myself the perennial question now, and the answer follows somewhat along these lines:
Well, self, the week looks to be mostly sunny, with a lot of cooking and cleaning, but with a high of dancing and singing towards the end of the week.

Now, shall I elaborate on that a bit? Sure. Bring it on.

Okay, so yesterday was the first day of the Hill Abbey. Now, the Hill Abbey is somewhat like a summer camp, only... not. It's way more mature than that. What it is is a select number of my father's students are invited to our house for two weeks, during which time they read through the works of Augustine or Athenasius or Chrysostom. This year they're reading through Chrysostom's works and love it. There are six of them, not including my father who leads the readings. Basically what they do is read all day long, starting at 9:00 in the morning, breaking for half an hour at 10:30, read again until 12:00 (at which time they do their trapist hour thing, where they spend an hour contemplating over the morning's readings, and write in their notebooks thoughts that come into their heads about the readings. The point of this is simply to cement the readings into their minds. To get them to think more about it), then we have lunch at 1:00PM, and they have free time until 3:00 when they start reading again. Break number 2 comes at 4:30, and the reading resumes again at 5:00, with the culmination of it all being the second trapist hour from 6:00 until 7:00. Dinner then follows. Sometimes if they spend too much time discussing the reading during the day, they have to spend an hour or so after dinner to catch back up, but it's not a problem for them, and they love it. Usually my Dad will built a bonfire after dinner and we'll sit around it and discuss things, and there's usually always singing around the piano for a while. Stargazing sometimes happens, too. We are encouraged to be in bed by 10:30, since the morning begins again at with matins at 6:30, yard work and such from 7:00 to 8:00, and then breakfast at 8:00, with the reading cycle beginning again at 9:00.
As you can see, it's the day is filled to the brim.

But I don't do any of that, really. I'm not one of the Hill Abbey people. Grace Anne and I are the cooks (the assistant cooks, rather, to my mother), so our daily schedule looks quite different from the Hill Abbey people's schedule. Ours looks something like this:

Our day usually begins around 7:00 AM(or 7:45, depending on how late you were up the night before). Thus far Grace Anne and I have been too tired to do morning devotions with the group (not to mention I keep sleeping through my alarm clock, sheesh), so we aren't up quite as early as they are. We make the breakfast with my mother, and then at 8:00 we call the Hill Abbeyers in, and we eat(Yay food). Usually we're done with breakfast by 8:30, so we do the dishes then, and have free time after that(usually we get on our computers and do email and facebook and blogs then) until 10:20-ish when we get out the morning snack. At exactly 10:30 the Hill Abbey people come trooping in thirsty for lemonade and coffee and water, and itching for pretzels and fruit and whatever else Grace Anne and I can come up with. At 11:00 they go back to their reading, and Grace Anne and I clean up after them (they make such a mess. It's rather atrocious((just kidding)). We usually spend our free time after this reading our books (she's reading the seventh Harry Potter book and I'm almost finished reading the second Twilight book). 12:30 rolls around, and GA and I hurry down to the kitchen to help prepare the lunch foods. 1:00 is the designated lunch hour, and after stocking up our plates of food, we head outside to the patio to eat. The conversations which follow are quite hilarious. I can't even describe it. Around 2:00 we do the lunch clean up (sometimes with the help of the other Hill Abbey girls), and we hang out or go on walks with them until 3:00 when they're called back to the books. Break time for us again until 4:20, and we fix them another snack. Yay. 5:00 comes, and usually around this time George begs us to watch a movie with him, so we do so until 6:00 at which time we start making the main meal of the day. Tonight we had chicken and Greek salad (which is only the best salad in the world) and potatoes. Stephen was pleased about the chicken, Parker was pleased over the potatoes, and my father was more than please in regards to the Greek salad. Thus, all the men were happy.

Now I can hear the beginning of dinner clean up going on. It's the only time when I don't have to be a part of it, hehe. Since we make all the meals all day, Grace Anne and Mom and I don't have to do the dinner dishes. We usually stick around the kitchen anyhow, since that's where the fun is, heh. Pretty soon, though, it will be time to do devotions, so I should stop this soon.

This is pretty much what my life is like right now. This is the routine I'll be in for the next two weeks or so. On Monday we're all taking the day off and will be going to the Monastery down by Lewiston, as a sort of field trip for the Hill Abbey people. Grace Anne and I will probably go to as their special guests. And then on Wednesday (not tomorrow Wednesday, but the one after that), we'll take another day off and go to the lake and mess around up there. We'll probably take the canoes with us, and go ride the wakes from the boats. Pray that we don't tip over.

Dad is ringing the bell to gather us together now, so I must be off. Devotions time.

Grace and Peace to you.