50 points to anyone who can tell me the origin of the names of those days. 🙂

Flambéing Rose Petals
Jon and I forgot to order palm branches to dry and burn to make the ashes for today so we got some old roses from the florist and decided to dry the petals and burn them for ashes. I dried out the petals, but they wouldn’t light on fire. We tried everything from cooking spray to vodka and nothing would light them. We tried doing this in the middle of the kitchen (mainly to avoid that wind that “sweeps down the plains”) and all we got was smoke and ash floating around from the paper towels we burned to try to get the fire going. (We got ashes from the people with whom we dined that night so all is good for today.) Note to self: save palm branches from Palm Sunday this year! (Well… or order in time from Augsburg Fortress.) Now to weave the stems into a crown of thorns for the service tonight…

Pancakes, Clergy, and Liqueur
We were invited to a Shrove Tuesday pancake supper by two pastors in Jon’s conference (who happen to be related to some people on my blogroll) and it was absolutely lovely. Supper was fabulous and completely bad for me. I tried Bailey’s for the first time and enjoyed it — it was probably good that I had all the bacon or I would have been really inebriated. The company was lovely and it was kind of nice that people assumed that I was also a pastor. (I did feel kind of bad when I had to explain that I was in process, not quite ordained yet.) The drive home was pretty uneventful except for missing the turn from US-12 to US-59 and having to find a turnaround place in the pitch black prairie.

Ash Wednesday… Thus Far
I woke up this morning with an asthma attack and found out that my inhaler was almost expired. I got a doctor’s appointment and had to explain to the doctor that yes, my peak flow was above average for my age and height but it was low for me. (I tend to be 100 above normal. I wasn’t all that impressed with her because checking my nose, throat, and lungs was kind of an afterthought for her when it’s pretty important to check for any signs of bronchitis with someone as severely asthmatic as me.) I came home with lots of meds to treat allergies, a new rescue inhaler, a prescription for Advair (now that I have prescription insurance and only have to pay $20 for it instead of $120/month), and a new spacer for my rescue inhaler. We’ll see if it does anything. Now to de-cat the upstairs and clean the dining room for my first year Confirmation class…