Easter Eggs

A beautiful day, and a great lunch out with another friend. It was so good to see her and catch up with one another......we finally had to leave so the restaurant could close and have their break between lunch and supper!

Now I'm doing laundry. That's one of the few things I miss from the house – the ability to throw a load in whenever I wanted and then just walk away. I thought I would find empty machines on Good Friday afternoon. One machine was just finishing a load, so I started one load and waited on the owner of the other laundry. My first load was at least halfway through its cycle before I got the second one started. I scurried back to the apartment and wrote down how much time I had left for both of them. At least it's not far to the laundry room!

All in all, the only thing that frustrates me with the laundry is having to pay for it. I don't mind sharing the machines, and sometimes it's a good time to chat with our neighbors. But we're still discovering this wonderful new world we live in.

It seems strange for it to be Easter weekend and I haven't bought Easter candy. Of course, I haven't bought much over the past few years. But I still miss that part of having kids at home. I didn't try to have Easter Egg Hunts for my kids – I figured they'd kill each other over finding the most eggs! With my bunch, it seemed much smarter to simply make an Easter basket for each one. There was plenty of candy and plastic eggs, and I usually tried to get them a book or toy so it wasn't all destroying their teeth. We usually had fun dying Easter eggs, too. My kids loved deviled eggs and potato salad, so there was no problem if we did several dozen.

As an only child, I realized that I had it made when it came to holidays. Easter was no exception. The Easter Bunny always did a stellar job of depositing goodies in every room of the house. I have to admit that I'm more fond of the current generation of Easter Bunny – in my day, the majority of what was delivered were these hard-shelled marshmallow filled eggs and jelly beans........not Jelly Bellies, just plain old jelly beans. They were fun to find, but their taste left something to be desired.

Another bonus of being an only child was not having anyone else in the family to burst any bubbles. And so I was older than most when I became wiser about such things. I'm not sure what age I was the year that the Easter Bunny overslept. Or I woke up earlier than normal. I never did figure out which happened. I remember getting out of bed and checking my room for Easter eggs. The Easter Bunny always hit every room in the house. Mom heard me and came in to “help” me look.

We looked in every corner of my room, under furniture, in toy boxes, around the knick-knack shelves. If it was in that room, we did a thorough search. And there was nothing. Finally Mom suggested we check another room. I wasn't feeling too hopeful......and then – oh, joy! Easter eggs! We checked the other two bedrooms, kitchen, pantry, and dining room......and in every room there were Easter eggs. I felt much better. And then the strangest thing happened – Mom suggested that we look in my bedroom again.

I was beginning to question whether she'd lost her marbles or not since we'd already torn that room apart. But, I went in to check. That was when the biggest excitement of all came – there were Easter eggs in my room! Man, if I'd only taken a different route through the house, I might have caught the Easter Bunny at work! And how did I not see or hear him? After all, the rooms of the house all opened into one another, there weren't any closed doors. It was one of my most exciting mysteries.

Dad joined Mom and me on the Great Easter Egg Hunt when we were about halfway through the house. If he was out of breath, I didn't notice then. But I never had to search my room for Easter eggs that weren't there again.