It's Easter! Time for a Rant!

Happy Easter to all!

For those of you who celebrate in a religious way, Happy Easter!  And for those of you who celebrate in a secular way, Happy Bunny day!  And for those of you who do not celebrate Easter, pastel wrapped chocolate is going to be 50% off at midnight on Sunday, so get on over to Walmart and grab it before Skippy and his friends do.

Easter used to be my favorite holiday.  It was one day, not really a season, so there was little pressure for multiple gatherings.  It's not really a gift giving holiday, so very little shopping.  (We always get something for the kids.)  And hey, ham is super easy to make.

Well that's not the case anymore. Easter has, in my family, become yet again one of those holidays we have to do battle over.  Where's it going to be?  (Not at my house...since we got the cats apparently my home is a death zone to all my relatives.)  Will the kids be there? (Probably not since neither of my kids likes big holiday gatherings and what is it about teens these days where you can't get them to commit to ANYTHING more than five minutes in the future?)  When will we be there?  (My mother, on Easter, always manages to make the commanded arrival time half an hour before we can physically possibly be at her home.  We sing in church for the late service, so we can't even get on the road  a minute before 11:30 and it's half an hour to her house.  But we are supposed to be there at, yes, 11:30.)

All this I could get past if it weren't for the last thing:

What can we bring?

I work three jobs.  My kids both work. Hubby works long hours plus we try to eek out some family time, some volunteer time at our church and oh yeah, it's EASTER so we're at church pretty much every night during Holy Week.

My mother tells me, "Oh, I have everything taken care of. Just bring one thing."

What would that be?

What's the most time consuming...messiest...not-gonna-happen thing she could have a house full of ADULTS ONLY make?

Yep, two dozen colored, hard boiled, Easter eggs.

Just 18 more to go!

When the kids were little this was fun.  We made an afternoon of it.  But the kids are grown, and really not interested in decorating Easter eggs.  Two dozen?  Let's look at what I have to do to make this happen:


1) Get two dozen eggs.  (Acutally get 3 dozen, because I always crack several in the boiling process.)

2) Boil the eggs.

3) Find the color kit I bought on special two years ago.

4) Find the white vinegar.

5) Go to the store and fight the crowds to get white vinegar.(This will take an hour, since I buy white vinegar about once every three years, or when I'm asked to make decorated Easter eggs.)

6) Find newspaper to put on the table. (We don't get newspapers.)

7) Wait, clear the table of cats, cat hair, and assorted stuff that seems to assemble on the kitchen table no matter how hard I try to keep it all off the table.

8) Find six cups I can use to put the color for the eggs in.

9) Beg one or both of my children to help me color and decorate the eggs.

10)  Fight the urge to just dye a bunch of raw eggs.  Imagine the Easter fun when we crack those puppies open!

Now, what, you ask, does my brother, who has small children, get to bring?

"Oh, you're brother will probably get some salad from the deli."

WHAT????????????????

His kids have been in Florida for a week with their mom.  He works one job.  He gets to pick up a salad from the deli?  He always gets to pick up salad from the deli!

Which would explain why I got up at 5:30 on A SATURDAY MORNING...I have 500 things to accomplish today and making Easter eggs is one of them.

I'm going to need way more coffee...