. Spinning .

Just got back from dinner and a movie at the neighbor’s house.  Enjoyed the movie, needed a good laugh.  Good cast, and the plot was controlled slapstick which was sophisticated and detailed. 

We don’t go out to the movies much, nor do we remember to rent any to play at home.  The last time I went to the video store I felt that same sense of confusion over trying to remember which ones I thought I’d always wanted and usually come out of the store with three.  One’s usually a stinker, the next is okay, and the last is due back before we’d had a chance to watch it.

Who am I kidding.  Yeah, the violets can make me smile, but the flowering quince and budding lilacs and red and green tipped maple trees are also screaming out “Get off your ass and get out here and clean the gardens; plant something!”

The pressure, depending upon the mood it catches me in, has been known to cause me to stomp upon the happy little violet heads.

Haven’t been as active a poster here lately, where once I was prolific.  There is good reason however.  I have been playing with Flash 8 so that I can present some fiction in a multimedia manner.  Rewriting two stories that I need (for mental health alone) to submit to lit journals before they close submissions for the summer. I’ve also been catching up on housework and starting yardwork because I’ve just let things get to me to the point of being overwhelming and I needed a good kick to get me going before I’m buried under it all. 

The very idea of having an income again has raised the amount in my amazon.com cart to about $250.  And at Tiger Direct (computer innerds) to about $150.  I’m just guilty enough however to be concerned about getting the framing done and more money in before I click those "Buy!" buttons.  At Amazon, of course I’ll merely select a portion of what’s waiting for me.

The violets are out and I find myself grinning every time I walk between the house and the shop.  Of course I’m also taking the indirect route by following the mole trails to tamp them back down to save the lawn.  They’re not usually this active in the spring; I think it’s because I didn’t put on the grubkiller in the fall. 

I rarely close my shop–despite the slow traffic in a specialized service in a rural town–but will readily do so for certain events.  Today our local library is having a book sale, and early birds for a small fee can browse this afternoon.  My frugal nature demands that I at least try to cut down on that amazon.com order by getting books for a dollar instead.

I wonder if I need to bring the moving cart with me…

Happy Easter.  No strings attached.

I came across a holiday greeting on a weblog this morning that’s started to eat away at me:

Happy Easter, to those of you who still celebrate it.

Still?  Is there a reason implied here that people shouldn’t?  Are you more hip or knowledgeable than those who still celebrate?  Those poor fools who haven’t wised up yet?  Is this a smug poke at religious beliefs or the Easter Bunny? 

It’s so damn condescending.  If you don’t believe in the reasons for Easter being celebrated, then post about your cat today.  If you’re nice enough to wish those who do celebrate for some reason, a simple "Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate it" would be welcome.

Sometimes being politically correct negates its own reasons for existing.  And those who try so hard to be so are clueless to this fact.  If this was meant to be politically correct, it is so miserably not.  Or maybe it is, and politics, smooth-talking, double-speaking politics, is the proper word for it.

By the way, I also respect and strongly defend anyone’s right to say whatever they want. My reaction may be a bit overdramatic and I may have misinterpreted the meaning.  That is my right and my problem, so I do not take offense personally nor personally attack the writer.  I’m simply relating my own reaction.

That said, Happy Easter!

So why are all my Easter eggs blue and green?  Because I’m clever and frugal.  I use the little bottles of food dye and you know, they come in a 4-pack of red, yellow, green and blue.  Well the red and yellow are used up in frosting and are long gone before you’ve even cracked open the green or the blue.  So this year we have a green and blue Easter egg theme that Martha Stewart would salivate over.  She might even appreciate the two cakes I’ve made in my life that had green or blue frosting.  The green was acceptable on a mint and chocolate cake.  The blue, well…

In thinking of Easter and little kids and rabbits (my favorite commercial right now is the one with the parents looking out their window at all the kids happily running all over the yard in search of Easter goodies and the woman says, "Did you buy the candy?" Of course, he says no.) I’m thinking of toys and how in our family as in many, plastic containers and lids were always pulled out for toddlers to play with on the kitchen floor. Not that we didn’t have regular toys, but kids just like the shapes and sizes and colors of plastic bowls and everybody has them available to keep any kid quiet. It makes a point for locks on lower cabinets in the kitchen and bathrooms, since kids raised this way simply come to believe cabinets to be their "toy chests." It also is likely the reason we tend as adults to peek into your cabinets at your house. It’s a learned habit.