Great Expectations

I really thought today would be different.  I did.  After all, my youngest has already reached the august age of 7, and we have only 4 children at home this Easter; there's no reason not to be able to pull off a civilized sort of Easter dinner, with everyone sitting down at the same time.  I even stacked the odds in my favor by keeping it simple - roast beef sandwiches (PB&J for the vegetarians) on delicious bakery rye bread, with ice cream sundaes for dessert.  No worrying about different hot dishes being ready at the same time, no mountains of pots and pans to detract from the holiday atmosphere. 

Pictures like these make me weep.

So I gave it the old college try.  I had the children spread the Easter tablecloth (well, not cloth, exactly - more like vinyl, with pictures of bunnies and eggs on it, but "cloth" sounds better, doesn't it?) and set out matching plates (an Easter miracle, right there - 6 matching plates, albeit plastic and from Target), along with pretty dishes of strawberries and pickles.  Also? A little plate of sandwich toppings.

I was going for ambience, people, in a minimalist sort of way. 

Reality, however, intervened.  Wait, did I say intervened?  I meant to say, reality jumped behind the wheel of a Mack truck and drove it straight through any foolish fantasies of wholesome family togetherness that I might have had the temerity to entertain.

Susie spent most of lunch screaming in her room because she WANTED EGG SALAD (we hadn't dyed the eggs yet, so I wasn't letting anyone touch them).  David spent the first half of our holiday meal guarding her door.  Larry, after finishing his own meal, replaced David at his post so that he could have some lunch, but not before having to jump up from the table to respond to an emergency involving an exploding can of Coca Cola.  It was messy.  Very messy. 

All in all, today felt like any other day around our kitchen table, only louder.  And with better bread...

[Easter table image: SheKnows]

Easter Lite

Our long-suffering townhouse neighbors have figured out a way to exact revenge.  Either that, or it's a normal thing to start tearing up one's kitchen floor at 11 PM on a Friday.  So, yeah, getting to bed early this evening didn't quite work out for me.  I don't really mind, as I have to finish up my work contract, anyway.

Of course, once I do that, I'll be unemployed.  But at least I'm not enduring the agony of a DIY kitchen remodel.  And maybe the lack of extra income will keep Larry from tearing out any more walls in this house of ours.  One can only hope.

Pretty, but definitely beyond our skill level

I hope no one is expecting an uplifting post about Easter here.  I've spent the week pretending it wasn't bearing down on us; so now I have to spend tomorrow racing around, searching for eggs suitable for dying.  No one here has ever quite gotten over the trauma of that long-ago Easter when I bought eggs with brown shells by mistake.

For the record, brown plus any color?  Equals brown.

I do give myself credit for the fact that a few years ago I convinced the kids that the perfect Easter dinner would be ham sandwiches and make-your-own ice cream sundaes.  Feel free to copy my awesomeness.  I don't know about you, but I have no desire to cook a big dinner at the beginning of spring.  Thanksgiving?  Yes.  Christmas?  Certainly.  But spring, when it's actually nice outside and there's no need to hunker down in the kitchen and churn out carb-laden comestibles?  No.  Absolutely not.

Okay, time to get some work done here.  Over and out...


[Easter eggs image: Just Short of Crazy]

Spring Stinks

You know, in these parts, we used to refer to this time of year as "Cherry Blossom Season." We'd look forward to the gradual unfolding of these delicate flowers and even take bets as to when "peak bloom" would occur.  Oh, the gloriousness of those pink blossoms against a perfect blue sky!

But now?  We're all just living in grim anticipation of the spring day when the stinkbugs emerge from hibernation and, instead of heading outside, bumble obnoxiously into our living spaces.  You know what's fun?  Being awakened from a sound sleep by the buzzing sound of one stupid stinkbug that has decided to fly around the bedroom in the middle of the night and divebomb your head.  Also fun?  Finding a stinkbug sitting on a toothbrush that has been mistakenly left out on the bathroom vanity overnight.

Trying to decide where I want to run away to...

Hope is the thing without stinkbugs

[Cherry blossom image: TakeTours]

Look Before You Link

I have JenniferJo over at Mama's Minutiae to thank for the fact that my skin is crawling and I will never get to sleep again.  That's because she posted a link that she said made her happy.  Very happy, even.  I believe the word she used was gleeful.  Hey, I thought, I could definitely use some of that!  And I clicked. 

What started out as an amusing tale about a marital squabble over a husband's duty (or not) to catch nighttime spiders descended into a blog post discussing thousands of glittering spider eyes, the painfulness of army ant attacks, and a bed covered in cockroaches.  Oh, and let's not forget the picture of the termite mound...

I think I need some sort of Internet filter that blocks any website that mentions bugs.   I also think JenniferJo's version of "gleeful" might be a little bit skewed.  Either that, or she has it in for me.

Wardrobe 911

I decided to try on a couple of pairs of jeans yesterday in Kohl's, when I took Rachel there to buy a white blouse for choir.  That was a big mistake.  BIG MISTAKE.

I've been watching what I eat ALL WINTER, dammit.  I'm really fed up with this disappearing waistline thing.  In fact, I'm ready to ditch jeans all together and just wear elastic waist pants from now on.  Let's see, I think I saw some decent ones at Lands End...maybe you should all help me out here.

How about these?  The problem is, do I need to get all new shirts to go with them?  Shouldn't I be wearing more of a tunic-length with pants like these?  And what about shoes?  I can't wear Dansko clogs with these, can I?  That would look weird, sort of like hooves, right?

See, Larry wonders why I am walking around in jeans that are too tight and full of holes, because he doesn't understand that one simple purchase morphs into the mind-boggling exercise of revamping my entire wardrobe.  I could weep.  And not just because the button on my jeans is digging into my stomach....