Easter Eggs

Our inspiration:







Our interpretation:



Notice the blue egg at the very top of the image? Christian decorated one of his with a battle ax. I thought that was cute. These aren't Faberge eggs, but we had fun Easter morning with crayons and food coloring. We are planning on making deviled eggs and tuna salad with our "art." Christian suggested that we decorate all the eggs that we buy from now on.

Crumbs for Breakfast?

This morning, my nine year old and I woke up shortly after 6:00am. Though he's usually the first one up, he’s not accustomed to waking up that early. He walked to the kitchen windows, looked outside, and shouted, “Wow! I’ve never seen it look like this before!” I told him that he should go sit outside on the porch and listen to the birds. I think all the doves in town congregate in the oak trees around this house. (I’ve shared the tragic dove story with you all.)

I have a little rule in my house: the early bird gets to choose what we will have for breakfast. This morning I asked my son what he wanted, and reminded him that we had sausage, eggs, and tortillas, for his favorite morning meal, taquitos. At one time, his favorite morning meal was Deviled Eggs. After the Deviled Eggs phase, he played chef and made us all breakfast. He prepared what I can only describe as migas*, but instead of using crumbled tortillas, he made his migas with Fritos. I thought it was crazy, but then one day while looking through the Come to the Table cookbook, I found a recipe called Frito Eggs on page 285. No way!

This morning, my rara avis was in the mood for noodles, “spicy noodles.” Maruchan Instant Lunch was the breakfast of champions this a.m. I’m ok with it, because an equally fast and healthy meal that he will eat is made with a rotisserie chicken from H.E.B., a bag of flatbread, and a Caesar Salad kit. We call this Caesar Chicken Wraps and we load the bread with the chicken and the yummy green salad. It's usually difficult to roll or fold.

I tell my children that if they don’t add some color to their meal, their body will make bricks. =D

*Today I learned that the Spanish word, migas, means "crumbs."

Dream:

My items were being scanned at the checkout of H.E.B. Plus as I woke up. This was another dream that created a storyline around the sound that pulled me out of sleep. Before I had placed my items on the conveyer belt, I was walking around the store wearing a hat that was three feet tall. I wanted to laugh out loud as I imagined what the other customers were thinking as they looked at me. I tried to keep a straight face. A man sporting a head of disheveled hair gave me an inquisitive look, and I told him, “You have strange hair.” I was projecting in my dream. =D

Before I had selected the tall hat, I had tried on others. I was looking at my reflection in the glass doors of the frozen food section. I remember thinking that the hats were similar to something Lady Gaga would wear.

Before the hats, I was sitting at a table in a restaurant when my Aunt Lucy came up to me and said, “Grandma’s kidneys are failing.” She put her head on mine and I could tell that she was very tired. I asked Lucy if she could help me with Kelsey’s prom dress, which I remember thinking was selfish even in my dream.

I can’t remember much before that.

***

Looked at some houses yesterday. The kids fell in love with one on Riata, but I think it's too small. Where will we put MY books and HIS tools? I sure do miss our old Tanglewood home! He had a 20x20 workshop...

Yard Hunting

We are getting ready to go house hunting. We have been in this house for almost two years. It's not that we are unhappy with our home or this neighborhood, in fact, I doubt that I will ever find a house I like as much as I like this house. I picked this house for me, big kitchen and a heaven of a back porch.

Did I mention that my heaven of a back porch was pretty much our back yard? My lovely home is basically an over sized patio home. Perfect for my favorite activity: lounging around reading books, but not conducive to my family's active life-style.

As soon as we moved, our needs changed. First of all, my daughter developed an interest in basketball. She went from being anti-sports to a sportaholic almost overnight. This house has a sloped drive-way which left us no choice but to set up her basketball goal on the curb, which means that she plays basketball in the street every day. That's fine, because this street has hardly any traffic, but I would rather have a flat driveway for her 24/7 hoop shootin'.

Also, my youngest put on some weight around his mid-section and has become an avid gamer. This alarms me because I've never seen any of my children this sedentary.

Active families should be on the other side of John Stockbauer OR they should have an over-sized backyard.

More on Dreams

“Jaime had never realised that trees made a sound when they grew, and no-one else had realised it either, because the sound is made over hundreds of years in waves of twenty-four hours from peak to peak. Speed it up, and the sound a tree makes is vrooom.” Good Omens

I hate it when, in my dream, I am lying down or viewing the dream-world from my bed. Maybe it is another symptom of sleep paralysis, only instead of being totally conscious while unable to move my body, my unconscious mind is restricted by the placement of my physical body. How is that for a role reversal?

That happened to me last night; I dreamed that I was lying in bed staring at the ceiling. A vine poked through the ceiling and began to grow straight down to the floor as if the sun was below me and the sky was the earth. I was amazed in my dream that I could witness the growth of the vine. I thought that maybe this is what happens when I am sleeping – I go into slow motion as time around me goes into fast forward mode.

I saw that another vine was growing up from a pot sitting on the floor. The two vines stopped midway and began to spin around as if blindly feeling for the other. Finally, they connected and began to tangle and grow towards the right side of the room. The vine that had come from the ceiling suffocated the vine that grew up from the floor and this was very disturbing to me. The vine I had watched in amazement caused me to forget about the vine that I was to nurture. It was my fault and I felt guilt and remorse.

I’ve wondered if dreams are symbolic or if they are so literal that we are forced to give them too much meaning. I remember a dream I had as a little girl after a bout with a stomach virus. I was dreaming that my step-dad was chasing butterflies with a butterfly net. I emerged from that dream to my mother saying, “Tony (my step-dad) caught your bug.” That always fascinated me. Why, in a dream state, would my mind interpret the dreaded “pukes” as a beautiful butterfly? Literally, my step-dad had caught my “bug” which was symbolized as a butterfly?

I did go outside this morning to check on the landscaping. I often pull and redirect passion vines from roses, but this morning I attempted to pry tight tendrils away from my grapevine and ended up just yanking the aggressive vine out of the dirt. I had redeemed myself!

Which makes me wonder: What does poison ivy look like again?