I Love Easter

I love Easter. It's the first long weekend in a string of several. It's springtime (or it's supposed to be). Who wants to think about war and Karla Homolka? I'd much rather have thoughts of spring flowers, sunshine, baby duck chicks, fluffy bunny rabbits, delicately adorned eggs, family feasts of turkey and ham, and of course CHOCOLATE. Lots and lots of chocolate.

It's like Christmas without all the stress. The kids get 4 days off school. You get to shop for gifts. You have a little holiday celebration. What's not to like?

A few years ago we had a pretty good one, when we first started hanging out with the neighbours. We got together and pooled our leftovers, there was turkey and potato salad, and wine. We ate our meal out by a bonfire. And then it started snowing on us. Not like this year though, it was just random light flurries. Good times...good times.

Last year, Big R and her entourage came up for a ham dinner, and they liked it!

I was hoping to have a bonfire this year, our pile of brush is quite extensive, but the weather is not permitting. We want to expand the firepit, but we need to burn what's in it first. Technically, we aren't supposed to burn until May, but I see people doing it all year round. Maybe they get special permits, I don't know. Burning season is May 1st? - December 31st. We didn't know that back in the day. Who knows, if the snowfall lets up at some point, maybe we can have a fire afterall.

I always feel good, well happyish, this time of year. I love Easter.

And I figured out how to wrap my heated throw around myself so it doesn't get tangled in the chair, yay me. I'm toasty warm now as it continues to blizzard outside.

It's Easter Sunday, I love Easter. It's STILL snowing, but nice and warm inside. It's a new day. I'm hoping to put that Freecycle fiasco out of my mind. How frustrating that the moderators won't even let me say anything about it on the board. I sent an email anyways and got a reply to that. I received a lame apology. I'll just have to remember the names and not have any dealings with those people. It's unfortunate that of the nearby towns that one is the largest, therefore it has the most activity on it's Freecycle site.

Ah well, new day, new mood. Enjoy your day.

Good Friday

It's Good Friday and we have snow. It hasn't stopped coming down. The temperature went from +5 to -5 and the rain changed to snow. At this time last year we had Little R hunting for Easter eggs outside. There was no snow, it was springtime.
Hubby gave me an Easter lily yesterday. Easter lilies have a fantastic aroma, if you've never smelled one, do! I learned last year that I can plant it in my garden and it will bloom again later in the summer. In fact when I did that last year with 2 of them, they multiplied. Each one turned into 3 or 4 plants. But I wasn't successful with digging up the bulbs in the fall, I ruined them. I'll try to be more careful this year.
When I was out looking at my gardens last week, I noticed my mystery flower was coming up in it's usual location. This year I'll be sure to get a clear photo of it and try again to have it identified. I believe last year for the first time it had 2 flowers on it. I couldn't find it in any books at the garden center. No one I've shown it to knows what it is. It blooms in the spring along with the tulips and daffodils, same spot every year. When I asked about it at the garden center, they said maybe someone brought it from another country and so is not common here. They couldn't identify it from the photo I had. I've never seen it anywhere else myself.
We played darts last night, first time in a while. Ya win some, ya lose some.
Someone on Freecycle offered a mobility scooter and Hubby will be picking it up sometime this weekend. They actually offered two of them and apparently there were a lot of responses. Hubby was lucky to be chosen as one of two recipients.
I've mentioned my Easter trees on here and this year I got one for Big R. I like hers better than mine and may get one for myself yet. At any rate, I took pictures...





So there you have it, Easter trees. The one I gave Big R is shaped more like a Christmas tree. So it's a styrofoam cone covered in eggs, flowers and ribbons. Quite cute. I've had these ones for so long, it is time for a new one.
Upon looking at the photo of the wreath I made, I thought, it's awfully loud and busy. I think I'll make a new one for next year. I'll use a bigger wreath, tone it down, use more flowers and ribbon, or lace. I did notice in one store or another, they had fake Easter lilies, I could use those.
We haven't decorated any eggs yet, maybe we can do that today. It's always fun and we all like to eat eggs. Which is amazing, considering we once got very sick from eating bad eggs and wouldn't touch them for years after. If you've ever had food poisoning, you'll know how sick we were. It was an unforgettable experience.
Ok I'm outta here, have a lovely holiday.

Easter And Too Many Dishes

I just realized, Easter is only three weeks away. It's too bad Little R is too old for the Easter Bunny fun. I'm sure we'll decorate the house and decorate eggs and shower Little R in gifts anyways. I'd like to have another nice Easter dinner with Big R in attendance. Then we can shower her with gifts too. We had a lovely dinner last year. I'd like to do it again. I just haven't received a reply from Big R yet.
I think we went to church at Easter when I was a kid. I remember frilly dresses, big hats and white gloves. I don't remember big dinners or much Easter Bunny fun. As far as decorating eggs, we make a bunch of hard boiled eggs, decorate them and then eat them with our Easter dinner. Decorating the house? I have an Easter wreath that I made and will put on the front door and I have a couple of Easter trees. I may hang plastic Easter eggs on a tree outside, that usually depends on the weather.
Today was very windy but mild. Hubby has been out all day again. I'm waiting for a truly nice day to go out and remove all the Christmas lights. And the garland from the back fence. It's just hanging on by a thread at this point. Those couple of nasty storms we had really did it in. All the LED (invisible) lights are going in the yard sale. We got them on sale so we won't mind parting with them cheap.
I think it rained some today too. Its very wet outside. The dogs are making a mucky mess of the floors every time they come in from a romp out back. But hey, the snow is disappearing, yay! We should be getting the bike back any time now. Cool, now that we have room in the garage for it again with that monstrous contraption gone.
I'm hoping to get rid of some dishes at my yard sale too. I've mentioned before that I just have far too many dishes. Most sets I have placings for 12 or more. I have at least one set I can get rid of and then a bunch of odd plates and cups. The set I'm selling was bought at an auction for $20 and we used them as our everyday dishes for years. I then bought new dishes for a Thanksgiving dinner one year and they have become our everyday dishes. Last summer I bought a set at a yard sale for $30, which I still think was too much, but I liked the pattern and it included a teapot, creamer, sugar bowl and a cannister. I haven't used them yet, but they are nice to have and I'm sure I will use them at some point. Then of course I have my mothers "good china", I've used it twice so far, once I remembered I had it. It mostly decorates my large china cabinet and will be used on special ocassions. I have two different sets of Christmas dishes, one has placings for 12 the other for 4. Then I have these odd dishes that were collected at different auctions, a couple at a time, they are very pretty, I have 4 plates, a couple of little plates and then several platters of various sizes. They also just adorn my china cabinet. I have many more platters than anyone needs.
I also collect tea cups and tea pots. That's just because my mother did too. I started out with a couple of her things and it grew from there. I don't even drink tea. Some of the tea cups I have are worth $100, just for a cup and saucer. I haven't bought any in a long time. My smaller china cabinet is overflowing with this stuff. One year for my birthday, S.P gave me a bunch of stands for my tea cup collection. I don't think I'll be parting with any of that stuff.
I have a ridiculous number of vases, I will be putting some of them in my yard sale. Same with candle holders, I have millions, they're going.
I know how it happened. This auction we used to go to, they sold things by the boxful. So if you saw something you liked in a box, you ended up with the whole boxful of stuff whether you wanted it or not. They also did tray lots with nicer stuff, so you'd end up getting six items in order to get the one thing you really wanted. I'm thinking of doing that with my yard sale, a box of vases, a box of candle holders, a box of dishes, rather than selling them individually. Or even mix them up, a box of vases and candle holders, a box of plates and cups. You get the idea.
I got another email from the lady organizing the community garage sale. It was kind of strange. No new information, no real reason for the email. It kind of seemed like she was asking me to try to recruit more people to join in on the sale. But she didn't say that exactly. Quite strange.
I've invited Big R up to help out with my yard sale, thinking it's a good excuse to get her up here for a visit and if she has anything she'd like to sell, here's her chance. But, no reply as yet. I think she's still mad at me. Mad because she didn't have a golden childhood and it's all my fault. At least she is talking to me again, just not recently.
I watched Titanic again last night with Hubby. He enjoyed it also. It was strange, the power went out for a second while we were watching it. Funny we never lost power at all during those blizzards we had, but a little bit of rain and it goes out. Just long enough to mess up all the clocks and the computers. I wonder if someone hit a pole out on the main road, what else could it have been?
Well, it's so nice to be sitting here and not freezing, not shivering, my old bones aren't aching, how nice. Hopefully it will be a trend. I realize it's still only March, but the damn groundhogs said it would be an early spring. I've seen Robins already. Today I saw Morning Doves too, which bugger Eddie promptly chased away.
K, I'm outta here. Have a great evening.