Easter Weekend

Hey look, I brought my camera to school on a NICE day. I don't know if I'm just spoiled, or if the mountains just don't look as impressive in pictures. 

The magazine project is coming together nicely. Well, stressfully.

My saturday is being spent researching the next bit. Stressfully. And yes, I'm multitasking and looking up recipes at the same time. I just noticed how few of my magazines actually HAVE inserts! 

In other news, I made scones for the first time in many months. They're pretty crumbly.

For Easter Monday brunch: Katie's bacon lasagna! It looks like a lot of bacon.

I did Lent again this year, or at least my version of it. I had a much more thought-out explanation last year, and fewer people to explain it to, so I feel like I was sheepish and lame about it. Something to do with making and honouring a commitment to myself, in practice for life or something. To know that, in a non-serious way, if the zombie apocalypse happens I can do without my favourite luxuries, and that, in a serious way, if things do fall apart I can hold fast to something that I'll always have. I can stand by statements that might make things unpleasant, and might not make sense. I know that I can keep the promises I make. I'm just strengthening my bond to myself rather than to a deity, and I choose to do this during Lent for the same reason that I give people gifts at Christmas (I dunno, 'tis the season?). Also, Easter is boring, and Lent makes me look forward to it much more.

So, I gave up pasta. And to be honest it's one of the few things that have held the last six weeks together. I know I can rely on myself, and that makes it all the more difficult to try and... well, if I may be vaguely specific, to give someone the opportunity to share the load, even when that may be the only way they can redeem themselves.

In short, the Easter pie is going to be late this year. If it happens. A promise I made to myself (that I know I can keep) is never to make it again, if I have to make it alone.

A Day for Doing Things

 I had this rule where if it was a weekend, I was really going to take the day off if I could. And if I had to go in to work, then I would work on my own stuff only if it wasn't a full shift, and only for the amount of time to do eight hours of work in a day. But here I am, on a Saturday, before a full shift at work, getting things done.

Well mostly I'm waiting for my dog to wake up and insist on going outside RIGHT AWAY before I commit myself to anything too time-consuming, like having a shower.

I haven't been crafting much lately. Since that whole glass fiasco, I decided that the best present for Katherine would be a cross stitch pattern that I was making when we lived on Quinn Street. She was always so excited to see it coming along, and planning where we would put it once it was done, so it always sort of weighed on me that I never finished it. UNTIL NOW!

 Of course, when one openly makes something like this, one gets a lot of comments such as "you know, that would look great in OUR kitchen, too," so maybe that's where this sudden cross stitch craze came from. The huge one I'm working on will never be finished, and takes so much obvious effort that maybe people won't just ask for it. I mean heck, this one's not completely filled in, is the size of a photograph, took me three years to finish (although an intensive three weeks at the end covered most of it), and was about $300 to frame (although I got it on sale).

Also shipping is a pain. But I think I've got the hang of it. All I can say is, I'm never getting anything framed again.

Of course I had pictures of the finished package, but thought maybe Katherine would appreciate my not putting up pictures of things that had her address written on them in block letters.

 Oh, and I DID team up with my mom this Easter to make that pie I said I'd never make again. With two people it goes much faster, and with far fewer meltdowns. We actually got it on the table when it was still light out!

In other news, this is my fiftieth post! I'll drink to that.