Thunner!, A Hen Named Sprout, Fabric and Thread

 1. The first thunder storms of the season arrive at bedtime. The rumbles are gentle and friendly. My mind connects them to the summer storms I remember as a child and they lull me to sleep.

 

2. I am reading this sweet little book given to me by a friend.  I find that I have become fully invested in the life of a fictional little hen.

3. The desire to sew a garment has reared it's fickle head. It usually shows up this time of year, in the spring. I call it fickle because I only achieve a successful outcome thirty percent of the time. But I wear those thirty percent with one hundred percent confidence in my ability to sew garments.

Happy Jonquils, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Let There Be Light

 1. Every single year the daffodils make me so very happy. Every year! I will never, ever tire of them. 

2. Daughter and granddaughter now play the piano together. They are working on a wonderful duet and they perform a little of it for me.

3. Last night, at the Easter Vigil Mass, Steve had a job to do. The first hour of Mass was held in darkness with only pools of candlelight. When we stood and began to sing the Gloria, the church suddenly became fully illuminated. The effect was stunning. It was as though Heaven said, "Let there be light" and BAM!. Haha! I knew it was Steve. 

Claire and Mari

Celebrate!, As You Like It, All the Joy

 

 1. Good things are about to happen. The beginnings of spaghetti sauce, onions and garlic sauteed in olive oil, is the best aroma in the world. 

2. I am making the sugar cookies the way Steve likes them. They have orange peel and vanilla in them and no sanding sugar on top. As he eats a cookie he asks, "How long have we been married?" I answer him, "Forty-three." He says, "In all the forty-three years we have been married this is the first time you made the cookies the way I like them." I tell him he is being ridiculous.

3. The Easter week celebration encompasses so many of our senses. There is the food, of course. And there is the beauty of nature enrapturing us with its flowering exaltation. There is the church music that turns from mournful on Thursday and Friday to joyful and exhilarating on Saturday and Sunday. Smells of incense, chocolate, flowers, grass, and rain tell our sleepy winter brains that something good is coming.

Craft Day, All That Is Left, They Made It!

  1. Audrey and Violet came over to decorate Easter eggs. They used a technique with Cool Whip and gel food coloring to make tie dye designs on the eggs. It was a fun process and the eggs turned out pretty.

2. Having company come warranted a special lunch and a treat afterward. We had Cesar chicken wraps for lunch and little cherry pies for dessert. Violet preferred the fresh strawberries over the cherry hand pies.

3. The blueberry bushes from Claire's house that I transplanted last year are all in bloom! 

Only Nine More to Go, Relaxing with Dinner, Faith

1. Spent the day painting boxes with Kay. They are the brainchild of our desire to make a fun rug hooking workshop for our group in May. They are beautiful, hand crafted boxes that we are painting and antiquing. Every few boxes that we finish, we ask ourselves, "What were we thinking?" We need to make thirty-four boxes! It's a good thing the two of us never tire of being together. At the workshop, each member will receive a box of their color choice, seven patterns from which to hook a mat for the top of the box, and a serged piece of linen to draw and hook the pattern onto. Everyone is excited about it!

2.  Leftovers for dinner, eaten in front of the television watching an older Netflix series called "Travelers". It is a science fiction, time travel story. It is the rare something on which Steve and I can agree to watch. 

3. The Lenten season has brought us to this final Holy week before Easter. It has been a season of introspection, confession, and reconciliation. I love everything about this season. Unlike the noisy, boisterous celebration of Christmas, Easter comes softly and quietly.

"Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song."

Pope John Paul II

Sunday Dinner, On the Patio, A Teaser

 1. We have an especially good Sunday dinner of breaded pork chops, Brussels sprouts, roasted carrots and parsnips, and applesauce. We used to always have special Sunday dinners and it would be nice to start that tradition again.

2. The sun is warm enough for us to sit outside for part of the afternoon.

3. The lawnmower is ready for the season. I give it a test drive and get rewarded with the aroma of cut grass.

Spring Blooms, Blooms, and Buds

1. We enjoyed the flowering plum and butterfly magnolia for a week or so before the wind and rain took them away. Year after year they delight us with their flowers yet we exclaim over their beauty as if it were the very first time we ever saw such a thing.

2. A friend offered me a container of daffodil bulbs and I could not say no.

3. I took stock around the property to see what survived the winter. It looks like the fig tree I planted last year has buds on it. I was really hoping this particular plant would live.