The Joys of Spring and Easter...

Happy (belated) Easter to you all!

I didn't even mention Easter in my blog last week. I think I was so incensed with the Dog Whisperer that I let him get in the way of my love of Easter. Fortunately, the puppies and I spent the weekend with my parents so we didn't have to deal with him any more. I'm quite glad about that. I also spent some time with my dad, estimating the cost of a privacy fence. He did offer to come help and while I'm really hoping he follows through, sometimes, with my dad, you have to wait a really long time until he's ready.

Even so, I know that if I can get help building the fence myself, it's going to cost way less than if I hired someone so maybe that, alone, is worth the wait.

It's always nice to spend a weekend with my parents, especially Easter. Since I had Friday off work, the puppies and I headed to Indiana on Friday morning. We couldn't have asked for lovlier driving weather. It was a warm spring day. I passed so many hosts of golden daffodils swaying in the breeze that Wordsworth would have been proud. When we got home, the puppies got to frolic in my parent's large fenced-in garden and I got to spend time with my mum and dad.

Saturday was not quite so warm though. It was actually very English in its very nature. One minute, it would be sunny with blue skies and the next, the rain clouds had rolled in, the wind cooler and then, suddenly, it's pouring with rain. It was definitely an April Showers sort of day.

And then, today, came Easter and another lovely Spring day. Our drive back home was just as pretty as the drive to my parents. It seems so strange that just a little over a month ago, the roads were frozen and snowy. Actually, when I was mowing my lawn the other night, I actually did stop and marvel at the fact that not so long ago, I was shovelling the driveway, piling up onto the four-foot snowdrifts that marked the sides of the driveway. Now, not too many weeks later, I'm mowing the grass in the exact spot.

It's a strange thing but I think that's one of the reasons I love Spring. As I've said before, one of the things I missed most during my California days was the change of the seasons. While winter is cooler and wetter, there's no dramatic reawakening of the world the way there is here in the Midwest. Here, you see the trees go from resplendent Autumn colours to bare structures, fighting the winter wind. And then, suddenly, little dots of green begin to appear and Spring officially begins to arrive, greening up absolutely everything, brightening the world more each day.

It's so nice to see the little Japanese cherry tree that I planted last Autumn blossoming with white flowers. It's lovely and I managed to keep it alive. It's like a strange sense of completion. I've now been in my house during Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring. Even though it's a few more months before I can say I've been a homeowner for a year, I finally feel like a homeowner. It's my house. Sookie and Rory probably helped like that- helped it feel more like a home. Yet, still, now when I mow my grass, I do so because I want it to look nice, not because it's what I'm supposed to do. I go to Lowe's and Home Depot and I don't think, "ooh, I could now buy stuff because I have a house!", I think, "Cool. I see things I'd like but what do I actually need?"

Of course, aside from repair stuff, I don't really need anything but it's nice to look and see what I'd like to add to the house.

Though I think the first thing definitely has to be that privacy fence.

Happy Monday and Happy Spring!

Easter and other Randomness...

It's freezing again today. Some of the daffodils look as though they're trying to hide from the cold; they're a little less yellow and a little lower to the ground. We had a frost last night and I have a sneaking suspicion that if the flowers had known that was coming, they might have waited to bloom. Hopefully, by the end of the week, it will have warmed up again and Spring can come out of hiding.

You'll be happy to know I only had two messages from the Derron lady when I got home last night. Both of them were her yelling at Derron to bring her food. I feel bad for her now. She must have been really hungry to leave him four messages between Sunday and Monday. If she'd have called back last night, I actually might have felt guilty enough to ask where she lived and, if she was local, offered to pick up some food for her. She didn't call though so I suspect Derron finally got in touch with her or, perhaps, she realized that I wasn't, in fact, Derron in disguise.

Last night I spent time with Jack Bauer on "24" again. I shouldn't watch that programme and then try to sleep; I always have weird dreams. Last night, I dreamed I was making a getaway in a deluxe motor boat after eating Clementine oranges in the tropics with Tony Almeida, one of the characters on "24". It makes for interesting dreams but not terribly restful sleep.

Still, it's a short week. We have Friday off which makes me terribly happy. Usually, I try to take Good Friday off anyway. Growing up in England, Easter Weekend was always a long one; we always had Good Friday and Easter Monday off. I'm willing to compromise on the Easter Monday but I do like having the Friday off. I think I might colour eggs this year. I like doing that. I'm not actually a fan of hardboiled eggs but it's quite fun to colour them though with those Paas die kits, they always end up turning some shade of blue, no matter if I've used orange or pink dye tablets. That's probably my fault. The eggs inevitably have fingerprints stained into the shells and I always emerge with purple fingers. Still, it has become easier over the years. When I was in college, my friends and I tried to dye eggs over Easter Break one year. We didn't have access to proper kitchen so we ended up trying to boil the eggs in the microwave. Needless to say, it was an unprecendented disaster. We lost a couple of eggs to explosions before we figured out that maybe we were supposed to prick a hole in the eggs before attempting to boil them in the microwave. We managed to do that losing only a few eggs to over avid hole-making. Unfortunately, we discovered that when you prick a hole in an egg and then try to boil it in the microwave, that hole provides an escape for some of the insides of an egg.

Thus, all of our microwaved eggs had tails. When you're attempting to boil eggs with a bunch of college-age boys, what was supposed to be an interesting egg experiment turns into a contest of who can come up with the most crudely creative comparison for how the egg looks.

I don't think we managed to colour eggs at all that year. I think we got points for trying though. One thing I did learn is that boiling eggs in the microwave is not ideal.

This year, I'll have access to a stove, a saucepan and a kitchen. Of course, I always say I'm going to colour Easter eggs but I usually only follow through every other time I plan on it.

I love Easter. When we were younger, our family had a tradition of making Easter nests. I think that's a British thing. Instead of baskets, we'd take a grocery bag or a box, shred newspaper and hide it. On Easter Sunday, my siblings and I would get up and have to hunt for our nest because it had been moved and rehidden by "The Easter Bunny". We'd have our Easter eggs and an assortment of loose chocolate in the bottom of the nest that we'd gorge ourselves on so that we weren't hungry for our Easter dinner.

Nowadays, I love the idea of Easter nests but I don't eat much chocolate. I find that odd, actually. I was a fiend for it once; now, I can eat a couple of pieces and I'm done. I usually end up keeping some Cadbury Creme Eggs in the freezer for a few months; it's nice to have them on hand when I do feel that need for chocolate. I like the Mini Eggs too but once I start eating those, I tend to keep going even when I feel like I've had enough.

So, as the week proceeds, we get closer to Easter. Obviously, it's not really about the chocolate or the eggs, really...it's about the holiday itself. Everyone celebrates in their own way whether they celebrate it as the beginning of Spring, hope or even life. I like to celebrate it as all three; the start of a new season, putting the winter days behind us and moving forward into a sunnier world. Now, if it would just warm up a little....

Happy Tuesday.