April - Easter (Was) In It

Somehow, I need to find time to blog. The longer I go without doing so, the harder it is -- the harder it gets to think, even.

So, April. The cruelest month? Perhaps. After early warm spells, we had to dig out our winter coats again yesterday. At least we didn't have tornadoes -- just a hailstorm early in Holy Week. (The guy who is supposed to be checking the roof for damage has so far managed to miss two appointments. Frustrating.) We need rain, and have been getting some -- but this also means that the grass has been too wet to mow when I have time to do so. Pretty soon, it's going to be too long in spots for our reel mower to handle, and I'll have to call in the yard-obsessed (soooo not us) retired neighbor and suffer through his ill-concealed disdain for our natural approach. (A different neighbor refused the five-year-old's proferred bouquet of a fistful of dandelions the other day. I can't imagine why....)

I started out in productive mode this month (helped by the spring break trip of DH and daughter to visit his old college friends, so that I actually had time in the house By. Myself. for a couple of days) -- but I have since fizzled. The "scary room," however, is no longer scary, and is actually clean (for the first time in, yes, years, because it had been so messy it had been impossible to clean in there). It's neat, too: a section of project A that needs to be done, Project B that needs to be done, etc. and so forth. Not that they're getting done.

Fun stuff: Easter was a beautiful day, and Nora's choir sang nicely as church began, standing in front of all the lilies on the altar. She had a new dress -- pale blue with different colors of flowers on it, including purple, which matched a little purple shrug sweater from The Children's Place. My mom made the dress -- and matching ones both for her 18-inch doll and her favorite stuffed sheep. (The doll has since been spotted wearing her Easter dress along with a jaunty riding hat.) My only new "clothes" this year was a purse, but I wore the skirt my mom made me last year.

Our Easter menu entailed: Resurrection rolls (crescent rolls, rolled up like shrouds around marshmallows that have been dipped in melted butter and then rolled in cinnamon-sugar -- symbolizing the oils and spices that the women in the Bible wanted to apply to Jesus's body; the marshmallows melt when the rolls are baked, so the "tomb" is empty); ham done in the crockpot with pineapple and pineapple juice, mustard and brown sugar; asparagus (DH's favorite); a green salad with some of last year's strawberries from the freezer; Rice Krispie treat nests (we formed them up the sides of our muffin tins and then made indentations in the middle), filled with egg-shaped M&Ms; hard-boiled eggs; and lemon meringue pie. Breakfast -- for us and for contribution to the church's Easter breakfast (I made two) was rhubarb coffee cake, with some of last year's rhubarb from the freezer.

We did an egg hunt and Easter story at a local church the day before (outdoors, and it rained just beforehand, so all of the eggs -- and kids -- were pretty wet, but it was fun), and Nora received an Easter basket (which, conveniently, has now morphed into something that looks *exactly* like those dollar store wastebaskets and is now serving her in her room. We spent some time blowing and chasing bubbles from the bubble wand outside. (She also received several books, including One Lost Sheep, a retelling of the parable but that may be a little too young for her, as well as some "I Can Read" type titles; elastic ponytail holders and headbands; a Barbie sticker book; paint -- to replenish the dwindled supply --  and fingerpaint, and fingerpaint paper. Plus some candy.)

(Almost a Month) in Review - Part One

Aaagh! It's snowed again today. I am so ready for this to be done with: I completely agree with the comments posted on a local news channel's weather section, in which someone identified Minnesota's seasons as including Winter, Still Winter and Enough Already!

I do, however, feel vindicated that I had not yet got around to packing away winter coats and boots or doing the seasonal wardrobe switch. Truly, my distrust that snow season is over until some time after Easter -- no matter how late Easter occurs -- has proven wise this year.

We have, however, had some quasi-warm days in the past couple of weeks: warm enough, at least, for the four-year-old to engage in bike riding. Before (most of) the deluge of snow from the winter melted, she was fancying herself a tracker on some of those rides: she'd stop the bike to examine animal tracks in the remnants of snow left near the sidewalk, count the toes, and speculate on the animal that had caused the tracks. (Note: my vote is for a dog going for a walk.) She also directly transferred the sand buckets and shovels from use in the front yard -- where they had been building snow castles, pretend ice cream, etc., this winter -- to the sandbox in the backyard, where she has been spending much time. She gathered pinecones from a neighbor's tree that overhangs our fence and drops them into our yard for use in the sandbox as well; for what purpose, I'm not exactly clear -- although I do know that she's been playing "pirate treasure," which involves burying things and then digging to look for them.

Birds have been spotted in our yard, too -- we've seen robins, cardinals and mourning doves -- and we paid a visit to the Minnesota Zoo for their "spring babies" exhibit, which involved petting a baby rabbit and admiring baby chicks, calves, a camel and more animals. We had several conversations that the zoo would likely not be having any baby horses, since - I'm pretty sure -- all of their grownup horses are "daddies," and you need both a mommy and a daddy to have a baby animal.

I've made some minimal progress on spring cleaning. One thing I did accomplish was cleaning out the Tupperware/plastic dishes cupboard, doing such things as identifying which repurposed containers actually had lids, which lids fit what, and containing said lids of the repurposed containers in a Ziploc bag so they don't spill all over the cupboard. I also found the popsicle molds in the back of the cupboard and had to fend off a request from the four-year-old to make popsicles -- for one thing, it is not warm enough yet for popsicles (see note about snow!); for another, I refused to start on this year's batches of popsicles until I had cleaned up the sticky mess in the freezer from where last year's popsicle juice spilled. (She does not know that I also successfully cleaned out the grime from the fridge and its on-top freezer while she and her grandma were watching the movie "Secretariat" -- again. Complete with pretend horse races starring the four-year-old. It's a shocker that the knees get blown out of so many of her pants, I tell you ...)

Grandma's visit to us was in part to do fittings on the new spring dress and skirt she was making for the four-year-old and me, from matching fabric. (Four-year-old N has been wanting to have matching outfits for a while now, and I figured we'd better do this while she still thinks it's cool. I let her pick the fabric -- within reason -- which ended up being a purple background with a spring floral print.) I was also able to delegate her to four-year-old haircut duty, and to send home my yard waste from bushes trimmings with her (the lazy woman's way of getting rid of it before our yard waste season). Grandma also accompanied us to the movie "Hop" that weekend (meh. It was OK.) and to a spring craft show where I purchased some cleaning cloths and some Easter-themed cloth napkins, my mom purchased a couple of metallic garden flowers for outdoor decor and the four-year-old, after energetic play in the indoor playground of the community center, plus rearranging nearly every single one of the (possibly former kindergarten teacher, or at least blessed with patience) vendor's plastic eggs in her display, convinced her grandma to buy her one of these items: a washcloth folded into a bunny shape whose tummy holds a plastic egg which, in turn, contains a tiny ice pack, to be used as a "boo-boo bunny."

We've also remembered this month to get out our Easter books for our seasonal reading basket, and we made a plastic egg garland -- as suggested in Amy's Notebook of March 16 -- for a household decoration. (Plastic eggs saved from previous years' egg hunts, plus the four-year-old's crafts stash of yard sale yarn, provided easy supplies for this.)