Easter Report

Leave it to me to come up with neither a spiritually significant nor an emotionally evocative post title. Oh well.

A report is a report is a report, right?

Well, let me report this: as I'm typing this post, I'm eating my 2nd piece of Key Lime Pie. And the crumbs are falling into the keyboard, but I don't care.



I feel as though I am eating Florida sunshine. Because the last time we were there, on Anna Maria Island, we bought a Key Lime Pie just about every single day and ate it. Did you catch that? Practically a pie a day.

I think it's called "Key Lime" because it holds the key to my happiness.

Where was I? Oh, the report.

Here is a thumbnail of any holiday at the Crow house when the kids are all home: The driveway looks like a car lot. A football and Frisbee lie on the breakfast bar and kitchen table. Mountains of laundry appear. Food disappears. Silliness at every turn. I love it.

Saturday evening, I cooked. Sunday morning, I cooked. Then we went to church. GREAT service.

Here are my girls and I just before lunch. I don't know if you can tell or not, but the younger one is so hungry here that she's about to gnaw on her sister's arm. She always was the biter in the family.



Then we ate.



Then I took a walk around my neighborhood. I felt like a giant Humpty Dumpty deviled egg waddling through my neighborhood, but I did walk.

Then I went to see my friend, Diane, at the hospital. That was hard.

Then I came home and sat down to write this post and realized I needed some key lime motivation.

My emotions are pretty tricky right now. I'm keeping them smashed down until the appropriate moment to grieve fully. Maybe that's why my writing has lacked emotion lately.

I will tell you the last thing Diane whispered to me today (she actually called me back to her bed so that I would lean down to hear her): "Keep writing. Keep writing. Keep writing."

I will, Diane.

Thought I'd share this with you. I liked it a lot.

Link Up for Easter's Random Dozen & Springtime Fun

I went on my first real walk with Zoe this year because it's just now getting warm enough to take her out. She carried a Ritz cracker the whole way, except when she stopped to read "pee mail" at the hydrant and put her FACE on the hydrant and relieved herself in the other direction. ? I picked her up to avoid a mud puddle but stumbled and stepped into the La Brea Tar Pit of Muncie in my neighbor's yard. Mud squished all up over my flip-flops and between my toes. Fun times.




1. How do you feel about the marshmallow Easter Peeps?
2. Chickens are notoriously nervous creatures. When you are nervous, what is the best way to calm down?
3. People say, "April showers bring May flowers." Do you enjoy Spring rains?
4. When I was randomly flipping through TV channels this week, I saw a show in which tattoo parlor employees received tattoos of a co-worker's face on their bodies. I can't imagine having a portrait of a colleague tattooed on me. But if someone forced you to receive a portrait tattoo (face only) of anyone, who would it be? Why?
5. Would you rather have a tattoo (any kind) or a nose ring?
6. Do you have any special plans for Easter?
7. Cadbury Eggs or Reese Eggs?
8. What was the last thing/person you took a picture of?
9. What book are you reading now, or what was the last one?
10. What do you think is the most difficult task when it comes to Spring cleaning?
11. How many pairs of flip-flops do you own?
12. Which color makes you happiest?

Flashback Friday

What was Easter like when you were little? For example, did you receive a basket with toys and candy? Was the Easter Bunny part of your family's celebration? Did your family integrate both secular and spiritual aspects of the day? Did you dye Easter eggs. . . .and did your family eat them afterwards? Did you usually get a new outfit? (Post a picture if you have one!) Does any Easter stand out particularly? You might also share how your Easter today is similar or different to your childhood?

Easter was a wonderful holiday for me when I was little. I was reared in a home of faith, so going to church and remembering the meaning of Easter was important.

Now that that important stuff is out of the way, let me just say I also loved Easter for the "most wrong" of reasons: les bonbons.

My mom was not the sentimental type when I was young. She bought the dime store baskets woven of plastic straw wrapped in cellophane, which, looking back seems kind of disappointing considering all I did for my kids in the way personalizing each basket which they've had assigned to them since their first Easters.

But I am not my mom.

Not yet, anyway. But give me a couple of years because every day I'm becoming her more and more. Just ask my husband.

Anyway.

I have to admit I loved my ugly yearly baskets. So thank you, Mother.

Also, I have an affinity for pastels, so Easter decor and colors appeal to me, except for the Peeps. I cannot do Peeps.

Every Easter my mom would buy me a new church outfit, usually a dress with matching hat, gloves and purse. Oh, and anklets and white patent-leather type shoes that went "tip tap" when I walked across the kitchen linoleum.

That enchanting "tip tap" almost catapulted me into my tap dancing career, except dancing was against the law in my church of origin, so I didn't get far. In fact, I only got as far as the church sidewalk where the adults gathered after church for talk for 17 hours. With a little blonde heretic tap dancing around them.

The best Easter I ever had was the year aliens invaded my mother's body, and she somehow decided to give my brother and me two live chicks and a duckling, which we kept in a cardboard box for a couple of weeks. Heaven for a few weeks. I LOVE baby chickens.

So here are some pics from Easters past. I will probably do a post closer to Easter to comment on the Easter finery. For now, simply gaze upon the awkward family photos.






Thanks, Linda, at Mocha With Linda!

Easter Frills and Thrills Blog Carnival--Fashion Retrospective

Thanks to Angela at Becoming Me, for this fun Easter-time carnival.

Apologizing in advance for the poor quality of the photos. They are old. Like me.

I believe this was my first Easter, since I was born in October. This is my father, Virgil, who is now 87. Everyone has always called him, "Bud," which fits. I think you can see by the size of my cheeks compared to his that Bud regularly sacrificed all of his food down to the milk for his coffee to me. This is a sweet tradition that continues today,
as I always steal his dessert at family get-togethers.
What's he going to do? Spank me?

This is the youngest of my three brothers, Donald
[or Donnie, or Don, or Don Diego].

He grew up to be 6'4", so it shouldn't surprise you to note that
he is three years old in this shot. Ha. Just Kidding.

And here he is at four. My, how he grew. Note how I'm beginning to resemble
Nellie Olsen from Little House on the Prairie. Lucky me.

Here I am again. Please note the living room of American suburbia, circa 1965, especially the flying zebras.
Also notice how I was already prepared to take over the
"knee cymbalist" position in the local orchestra
should that chair become vacant.

And here I am looking more precious and preciouser by the moment. How did my brothers compete with all this preciousness? (Gag.) I'm sure that I was not coached to do this because this is the type of child I was, very narcissisitic. Whew. Sure glad THAT'S in the past. Now let's cut the chatter about my brothers and move on to more pictures of ME.

This is 1972 or 73, the years of the big floppy hats and white go-go boots,
and I had both. My boots were a crinkly kind of wet-looking plastic.
Can I get a big 1970s "Sock it to me?"

And here I am at another Easter, I'm guessing around 1975, which would make me 13 going on ... platform shoes. I was mortified years later to see how short this skirt was. Why did Lucille and Bud let this dress pass inspection?? Please note the piano which is the one Kristin (Pink Floyd Cramer) plays now. In 1975, I was learning to play "The Way We Were," and that is indeed Barbra Streisand's pic on the sheet music. Note that my shoes and the La-Z-Boy are made of the same material: Naugahyde, from the exotic animal which became extinct after 1979, the "Nauga Vinyllius."

Please go see Angela by clicking on the button above, where you will find all sorts of Easter topics from the meditative to this kind of stuff. Thanks, Angela!