Monday, April 13, 2009

O.K., Yeah, it's been a while...

Just so much stuff on my plate. We are all still working through the loss of my mom and we just wrapped up the twins' birthday, my birthday, and Easter together as one big family get-together yesterday. The whole family, minus my brother in Chicago, gathered here at my house for the shindig. I made sure everyone got an Easter basket, including my dad who thought not getting one from now on was a foregone conclusion. I made sure it was nice; Walgreen's had Russell Stover candy boxes on a super sale with a coupon so I put one of those in his basket, along with the sort of usual stuff mom would have put in; Peeps, jellybeans, assorted cheap chocolates and chocolate-covered marshmallow stuff. Kathleen got one also, of course. I remember something mom had told me one year when she was housing one of Kathleen's friends for a while; she said that is was imperative to her that everyone in her house, even visitors, would get an Easter basket under her roof and no one was excluded from that rule. She wanted everyone to feel wanted and welcome in her house especially on the holidays and that was one of the ways she did it. An admirable philosophy and one I took to heart. Making sure everyone got an Easter basket was one of the ways I have honored her memory. I also wrote up clues for Mathew's egg hunt, as is traditional in our house. Even though Kathleen writes up clues for Mathew at home, my mother always insisted I also do it for Mathew here when he comes over because she always enjoyed the hunt with the clues. I think it was a pure nostalgia thing for her from our own childhood. It started when I was about 5; one Easter me and my brother didn't find all the eggs in the egg hunt and my dad didn't enjoy finding smelly bad eggs that were hidden a little too well. So the next year he wrote us up clues that would lead us from one egg to the other, which included doing little chores for him like feeding the dog. Me and my brother had such a good time with them he then had to do it every year pretty much until we moved out and had children of our own. Now it is one of those unique family traditions we do for Easter. But until the twins are old enough to do the clues a traditional egg hunt will be fine. My twins turned 2 on April 9th, but since they are young enough we could put off the celebration until Sunday when everyone would be there. My birthday was yesterday; I am now 39 which is going to be my age for a while, I think. I look pretty good for my age, no grey hair yet! At my age my birthday occurring on Easter was convenient, but as a child it would have been real special. At least I got to have dinner delivered as pizza-to me a perfect birthday. I didn't have to cook up an Easter dinner for everybody, I didn't have to take the kids on a long and tedious trip to a restaurant with all it's attendant nuisances, and I got to eat my favorite food! I think of yesterday as generally a total win situation. Though it was weird to buy my own birthday cake, but it was shared with kids as a triple birthday cake; first I blew out the candles, then Tabitha blew them out, then Tommy blew them out. The cake said "Happy Birthday Kids and Mom". Even though it felt a little weird ordering my own cake, I did get to have it exactly how I wanted it; chocolate whipped cream frosting, with chocolate cake! MMmmm! The kids loved it too; I have great pictures of Tabitha and Tommy wearing their cake, but I gave them big pieces so they ate a bunch too. The kids got a lot of great presents; a Curious George wooden tool set, foam action sound emergency vehicles, an elaborate bath toy, art totes with fabric chalk boards from the farmers market courtesy of my sister, and a bunch of other great things. My stuff was good too; Kathleen got me a great apron with a matching button on potholder from the farmers market. She also got me a beautiful batiked butterfly silk shirt from there also; it's styled like one of those blousey 80's bat-shirts, sort of tunic like. Andy has no time or clue about what to get me for my birthday, so I bought for myself (and had to wrap myself, as Andy is wrap-challenged) several Dremel tips and bits to take my jewelry making to the next level including diamond drill bits, and diamond cutting disks. A indescribable glass votive holder made in Poland I will just have to post a picture of soon which I bought at a local deep discounter; it was originally $65.00 which I believe just from the beauty and quality. I have had my eye on it for over a year, since my first visit to the store with my mom over a year ago. It was finally on sale for $17.99, from $29.99 which was the price they had been trying to sell it for. There was no way I was going to not buy it. Andy did buy me a Rubik's Revolution electronic game cube to replace one from last year which broke, and a beautiful dozen roses. Dad gave me money and a bath gift-basket in rose fragrance which is one of my favorites. Now to actually be able to get the time for a bath.......