One Not-So-Fine Easter Monday

Just when I think my day couldn’t get any worse, I get splashed in the face with stagnant pool water.

It was one of those really awful Mondays when all of one’s responsibilities seem to crash down on her at once. We came home to a messy house last night, and my allergies caused me to crash in bed early. So I woke up to an even messier house, as the children had finished up their breakfast with an Easter grass fight in the dining room. Laundry from the weekend was piled up by the garage. The kitchen floor was filthy.

I ran out to the store to buy science fair boards and found they came in two different sizes. I didn’t know which size to buy for my son, so I got one of each. The girls will reuse their boards from last year. We stopped at the library for research report books. This week we will complete three science fair projects, two book reports, and a musical report on Beethoven. So much for Easter vacation.

I open up my email and find the softball schedule for my second daughter. I compare it to the schedule for my first daughter and have the heart attack I had been preparing myself for all winter. And I didn’t even get my son’s baseball schedule yet.

I go to the mailbox – there is an Easter egg waiting for me, which the kids hadn’t found on Easter morning. I put it in my pocket, look up, and suddenly smile. There are yellow-and-violet hybrid cold-resistant pansies on my porch, where I had left them on Saturday, and planting them will make me very happy.

Once the toddler is in for a nap, I plant my pansies in the deck planters. While up on the pool deck, I decide to get one-up on the pool season and remove some leaves from the pool. I locate the pool leaf rake and start scooping. It is really hard work, and I am happy to be burning off the calories from the post-lunch chocolate splurge I had allowed myself.

My son is taking a break from scooping up dog-poo, hitting baseballs towards the woods. One of them lands in the pool, a few feet away from me, and I am covered from head to toe in filthy pool water.

That fit in with my day very well. I head to the head for an emergency shower. I am not a super-clean freak, but don’t like the idea of strange organisms in stagnant pool water sitting in my hair.

Once clean, it is time to heat up some leftovers for a quick dinner before softball practice. The coach announces a practice for Thursday, the same time as the practices already schedule for my other daughter and my son. The scheduling nightmare begins.

It is more difficult to get the kids to bed when there is no school in the morning, and I finally have them in their rooms by 10:00. I open up my email and there is a reminder from my friend that there are 40 days of Easter, 40 days to celebrate, to match the 40 days of Lent. I’ve started it all wrong, but (as Scarlett O’Hara loved to say) tomorrow is another day.

“He that is of a merry heart heath a continual feast.”
Proverbs 15:15

Painting: Christ Appearing to the Virgin, c. 1475, by a follower of Rogier van der Weyden

Easter Eggs

The Junior Easter Bunnies were back again on Good Friday. The Master Mommy Easter Bunny simmered eggs (for 20 minutes this time, as the 15 minutes recommended in her Joy Of Cooking yielded soupy eggs the past 2 years; 2 cracked and we were happy to find they were perfectly cooked all the way through, and just-right creamy) and prepared 7 cups of different colors.



We used McCormick’s food coloring: standard yellow, green, and blue; and neon purple, pink, blue, and green; with one tablespoon of vinegar per cup of boiling water and ten drops of dye. A little salt added to the water during the simmering process gives the eggs a more realistic, grainy texture.



The JEBs did all the actual coloring. The MMEB will be up early to hide the eggs on Easter morning. They are so excited for the hunt. Happy Easter!

Our Family's Easter

Easter Sunday had its ups and downs, as do all days.

It started at a little after midnight.

When my little brother and I went food shopping on Saturday night, we picked up six half-gallons of ice cream. He put them on the conveyor belt in a pyramid, hoping to cheer up the cashier, who was in a grumpy mood. It didn’t work; she was ready to sign off work and her smiles had been completely worn out.

I figured we were safe to give up our Lenten ice cream fast after the sun had gone down, but I waited until after midnight anyway. It was my favorite kind: Edy’s Chocolate Chips. And it tasted twice as good for having given it up for 40 days.

Fast-forward eight hours to morning. For the third year in a row, my eggs came out soft-boiled and were not edible. They certainly were pretty, though.

We got to the 11:00 Mass ten minutes early, but still could not find a pew where we could all sit together. There was a run-over service in the parish hall, so we went there. My toddler would not stop talking in church and I spent most of the mass out in the hallway. The few times I tried to go back in, she would say something and I was given some looks that could kill. My seat had been taken as well. My only consolation was my remembrance of that beautiful Good Friday Mass I had been able to thoroughly enjoy.

I had asked our good friends to be at my house promptly at 1:00 so that we could have an early dinner. They were there on time, but we did not eat early. I had gotten an eleven-pound smoked ham, which I had thought was precooked and just needed to be heated up. When I peeled off the instruction sticker, I realized with horror that it would take 4 hours at 350 degrees to cook the ham.

I called my mother, who had taught me the quick way to bake a foil-wrapped turkey. It turned out she had made the same exact mistake as me, and she too was waiting for her ham to bake down in Tennessee. She was not sure if the turkey trick would work with pork. I put a cover on my baking pan and upped the temperature to 400 degrees.

My friends had brought The Sound of Music on DVD. It was perfect for the waiting time; dinner was ready in three hours. I apologized up and down. My friend was happy she had finally been able to get her husband to watch The Sound of Music.

After dinner, the kids went exploring in the woods while I got ready for dessert. They had an awesome time!

My brother had a 7:30 AM flight out of LaGuardia, so we watched a late movie, took a power nap, downed some English Breakfast Tea, and drove to Queens at 2:30 in the morning. The drive was easy, with no traffic in the middle of the night, but I was still nervous about encountering drunk drivers. It turned out I mostly shared the road with truckers, which was just fine with me. I was very happy to be home.

I put on an Alfred Hitchcock film and fell asleep on the couch around 5:30 AM. The kids were on vacation and helped me take care of the baby until I woke up for good around 11:30.

Fast-forward to evening, when I was able to enjoy yet another bowl of my favorite ice cream!

Allelujah! He is risen!

Artwork above:
Fra Angelico, 1400’s
The Resurrection,
San Marc Museum, Florence.