Happy Easter!

I haven't observed Easter traditionally this year. Well, the bunny did hop for the kids, but nothing all that fancy compared to years past.

This Easter, I celebrated the spirit of the holiday. New beginnings that start with pain and sacrifice. I'm open to welcoming in that new beginning any day now!

It was rather weird, the wasband (I'm blatantly stealing this from a story I heard out in Chicago) came by early yesterday, wanting to go get me some mulch. There had been much talk the previous week about the boychild earning some cash by mulching. He might have told me, but I must have been in a fugue state at the time, that he had invited two boys to come over and work with him. Anyway, at 8 o'clock on Saturday morning, we unloaded the utility cart, hitched it up to the van, and drove to the High Point yard waste recycling center.

I love getting mulch. I'd rather get the really good stuff, but for the price, the stuff from the city works fine. I can definitely tell that the dirt in the flower beds are much improved over when I moved in. Well, you know; it's Easter. The yard waste center was closed. So we ate at IHop and came home.

I wouldn't let them put the cart back in the garage. Once it's in there, it becomes a gbhd to get it out again, and I want wasband and DS to go get some mulch on Monday afternoon (it's DS's spring break). So, even though it's Easter weekend, my utility trailer is out in the front yard, chained to a tree. It's to the side, says the redneck.

DS's friends are waiting when we get back. Since we can't mulch, I decide they're going to clean out the largest bed in the front yard--it looks horrible since I couldn't work on it at all last year due to my foot surgery play violin music here. It was horrible, choked with weeds, wire grass, chick weed, sticker bushes, day lilies, azaleas, Asiatic lilies, jonquils, etc. So, you just couldn't go at this thing with a rotor tiller. You had to be careful. I spent the time to show the boys the different foliage types. I explained the process--break up the larger expanses with shovels, then use the hand tools--especially the hands--to pull out the weeds and to get as much of the root system as possible while you're at it. They all nodded dutifully at the dotty old lady (at least I wasn't wearing a gardening hat at the time) and I went back to straightening out the garage.

I set up all my folding tables--that would be four, and started sorting all the accumulated stuff. The base is the carpet squares that they gave away at my office last year. But on the top, there's usually an interesting few layers of other stuff. You see, when it's not in use as a trailer, the trailer is a holder of all kinds of crap. Usually, it's the stuff the kids leave in my car and I get in a semi-frenzy when trying to put something on mine in the car but there's no room for it. So, I take out their stuff and toss it on the cart. My plan is, they will see their stuff and it will remind them that they should take said stuff (expensive coats, books, backpacks, electronic equipment, sports stuff) and put it away.

Oh no. The stuff becomes part of the landscape and more stuff gets piled on top.

I'm ashamed, but hey, that's what happens.

So, since the trailer is out in the yard, all the stuff has been displaced; and it became the perfect time for perfect placement. I must be nesting or something, because it became my quest to get it all put away (and without the usual resentment that accompanies such a chore--a miracle of the season). Gina replanted the sunflowers she's raising from seeds, the boys were weeding the large bed and chortling, and wasband was actually hanging the garage rail in the attic (another long story, but I decided it would be best used up there to sort the incredible assortment of luggage this family has accumulated over the years--okay, she realizes she has a problem with luggage and accessories; that's the first step, after all.

Life just doesn't get much better for me these days. So we're all working away. I decide to check on the boys. Remember those Asiatic lilies I'd so painstakingly shown to the boys--about half were gone. Those boys were certainly willing and eager, if not particularly discriminating. I didn't yell (much), I didn't screech (much). I just put cleaning the garage on hold to help the boys. They were so happy with my tutelage (not, but they put up with it since I was paying them). I made Gina come over and help me sort through the clumps and clods to remove as much root and weed matter as we could (did I mention that it poured the entire night before? It was cold and nasty work, but the sun was shining and we would never have been able to shift any of the nasty weeds if the ground had been dry--I need to remember to buy some amendments to add to the ground before we mulch--I wish I had some leave so I could take the time off to do it; why don't the Fed's give us Spring Break???).

My willing helpers eventually became less willing. One had to leave, and I didn't even see him call or text his mom to come and rescue him--but he might have. The other child continued valiantly, but mine own beloved hope for the future became increasingly whiny. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't pleasant. I made them clean up around the bed (the packed mud would have killed the grass in very short order otherwise), clean the tools, and then I turned them loose. About that time, DS's GF came by.

I've only met the GF's mother once before. I looked like hell, then, too. I love making great first impressions. Oh well, she's a gardener of exquisite taste, and to tell you the truth (not that I don't always anyway), she's the one who started this entire front yard spring clean up frenzy. You should see her pansy's! Oh, they're lush, they're gorgeous. I have pansy envy. I admit it. I also have pansy's in my mailbox bed, my center bed, my side of the house bed, and before I leave for DC on Thursday, there will be pansy's in my biggest bed--the site of today's yesterday's assault.

While the kids go into the house and start watching TV (I mean, good grief, I don't think DS had had ANY screen time and it was probably at least noon). I kept slugging away in the garage. I threw things away, I sorted, I puttered, I persisted. The carpet squares remain stacked in 4 foot piles along the center of the garage, but I got all the spare wood pieces stowed; the gardening stuff organized; the stuff that has needed to be returned to shed in the back yard for about 9 months now in a pile to the side; the painting stuff from the great January adventure (if I were good like P-Dub, I'd do a link, but I don't care) put away. I cleaned up the tool bench, and threw away a bunch of junk.

Yep, my trash heap at the curb began mid day on the Saturday before Easter Sunday. My neighbors will not miss me when I leave. I just wish my beloved side neighbors would hurry up and put their garbage out, too. My big bin is completely overflowing and I need to stuff some stuff into theirs.

So, I'm cleaning the garage, DD is loudly proclaiming that she doesn't think DS should have friends over because their not doing anything and he will never do anything so long as he has friends over....it went on and on and on and on... I tuned it out and she eventually went back to her computer and facebook.

In all the stuff I found the folding gravity neutral recliner I had purchased for myself last year at Ace Hardware (I love my Jamestown Ace Hardware store) for a great price. I was saving it for LEAF, but since the box had gotten somewhat damp, I decided to open it. And then I set it up. And then I sat in it. And then I laughed. And laughed. OMG, that thing is SO comfortable. So, I'm sitting in my driveway, facing my almost totally clean garage, drinking lemonade, and laughing my ass off while I'm reclining my chair. The detritus of the cleaning frenzy all around couldn't dampen my joy.

Pain and sacrifice had once again led to a new beginning and joy (on a much more mundane level than that being celebrated).

About 5:30, I stopped. I had promised the kids all day that we'd go shopping at J.R.'s down in Burlington when I was done. I didn't have it in me. Gina had been called in to work anyway, and she was the one who most wanted the JR excursion. So I bribed DS and his GF into supper at Lubrano's and a trip to Barnes & Noble instead.

I had a wonderful shower. Blew the fuse while drying my hair (I think maybe the plasma TV downstairs is on the circuit, because I've never done that before). Left the hair wet, rounded up the kids, went to Lubrano's, had the most incredible seafood manicotti of all time, bought chocolate at the Big Lots for the Bunny; bought a couple of books each and coffee at B&N; came home, went to bed, read my new book (Delicious by Sherry Thomas, we'll talk about it later, but I did enjoy it).

And that was yesterday (you wouldn't believe what I've already done today!).

Today is Easter; a time of miracles, new beginnings, and hope. We're on track around here. I sincerely hope you are, too; wherever you may be.