And now, very quickly, Easter and the rest of April

I usually write a post to welcome in a new month, with my plans and goals and all that. But April feels like it's half over already! And it's a short month, to boot.

In fact, it's not half over, it's 1/4 over. We still have three weeks left. Still, they are unusual weeks.

• Week 2, the one that's about to begin, has only two days of normal school, because it's testing week. The twins are off entirely on Wednesday and Thursday, and on Friday they go in for just the morning, to take the PSAT-9, a test which did not exist when I was young.
• Week 3, Teen B is going on an overnight trip to Grand Junction with the band on Wednesday and Thursday, and then both kids have Friday off.
• Week 4, the kids have Monday off. 
• And then it's May -- three full weeks of school, plus finals week. 
• And then it's summer. Ack!
   

So the only "normal" week this month was the one just past, and that was hardly normal, since we were recovering from Spring Break and Rocket Boy was trying to get things done and then I had to take him to the airport to fly back to St. Louis. Plus, the kids and I all had eye appointments and the kids had their yearly physicals. It was a complicated week.

It seemed very odd to have Easter pop up all of a sudden. Last Sunday, when we were just back from our trip, I was vaguely aware that it was Palm Sunday, but that was all. As the week progressed, I just didn't think about it -- Passover, Maundy Thursday, all that. When I talked to Rocket Boy on Friday he mentioned that it was Good Friday. These days used to be important to me, when I went to church regularly (in grad school), and I still like to acknowledge them. 

Well, I did acknowledge Easter, but it didn't go as planned. Last year Rocket Boy was with us, but this year it was just me, so I decided to do as much ahead of time as possible. On Thursday and Friday morning, when the twins were at school, I filled all the plastic eggs with jelly beans and even assembled the baskets. And discovered, like the last couple of years, that I had bought way way way too much candy. Why do I do this? Well, it doesn't really matter, we'll eat it eventually. Jelly beans don't go bad.

But then on Saturday, I was depressed. I can't really explain it, although it was cloudy, and clouds do send my mood south. Maybe I was missing Rocket Boy or maybe I was just tired. Teen A was yelling at his video games, the way he always does, and Teen B was yelling at me because I wasn't yelling at Teen A, and finally I blew up at both of them. And then gave myself a time out in my room, because I obviously wasn't at my best.

We normally eat out on Saturday night and it was Teen A's turn to choose the restaurant, but he was in a bad mood (probably partly because of my bad mood) and kept saying "I don't know, I'll choose it later." Finally, around 5:30 pm or so, he chose Subway, and I said NO, we just went there the last time you chose, I am sick of Subway, NO. Choose something else. And he wouldn't and so we didn't go out.

I went to the grocery store and got them some sushi, and I had leftover quiche. I haven't been feeling hungry at all this week, so the fridge is full of stuff that I'm supposed to be eating for lunch but am not.

Anyway, I finally got them to bed and then I did the dishes and then I got out the Easter stuff and hid it here and there. I'm not very good at hiding the plastic eggs and I wasn't in the mood to hide anything, so it was all pretty lame.

In the morning, when I got up (around 8:30 am), it was as though it was any old Sunday. Teen B had gotten up before me and found most of the eggs I "hid" in the bathroom, but then he'd stopped, to wait for his brother. But when Teen A got up, he wasn't interested. I finally got him to come out (from the desk room, where he was playing his endless video games) to the living room and find his baskets, but he was so bored with the whole thing. We stopped after they found their big baskets. The house is full of candy and nobody's eating it. The only beings showing any interest in the Easter paraphernalia are the cats.

So it finally dawned on me that they're too old for this. They've crossed a line. Last year they had fun looking for eggs, and maybe if Rocket Boy were here they'd get into it a little more, but I think the bottom line is that they're past it. They're 15 -- it's not at all surprising.

From now on -- if I remember, and that's a big IF -- I'm going to go easier on Easter. I'll buy some candy and set out some Easter baskets, but I'm not going to do this big hiding thing (that I don't enjoy anyway). If Rocket Boy is here, he can hide the plastic eggs, but I'm not going to do it. We've crossed the Rubicon. They've outgrown Easter.

I'm sad about that, but I'm also OK with it. It's hard not to think about when they were little boos and it was all so exciting -- but they aren't little boos anymore. Someday maybe they'll have little boos of their own to hide eggs for. I wonder if they will.

And now for the rest of April and the spring quarter of the year. OK, some plans. 

Month of April (and 2nd Quarter of 2023):

• April's theme is probably something like "welcome spring." I think of it as the month when light green things pop up everywhere. It can still snow -- it snowed this past week, 3-4 inches -- but we probably won't get a lot more. Also, the end of April is when we might first see a hummingbird.
  
  
• I should choose a new 2nd Quarter project, but I'm inclined to go on working on the files. That's a big, big project. However, I'll also choose the yard. Our back yard, as well as both side yards, is/are a disaster, and we can't afford to hire anyone to work on them right now. I'll go on with the schedule that I made last month, where I work on the files two days a week and the yard two days a week. If I actually do that, I should start to see results.
  
  
• Socializing: I told a friend of mine that I would invite her for coffee in April, but at the moment I'm not feeling like it. Maybe later in April, when things calm down, I'll feel more like seeing people. I can't be a hermit forever. (Or can I?)
  
  
• Reading: I'm working along on my books from the shelves by my bed. I've read the book group book but we'll choose another at our meeting on the 18th. I'm thinking I might get started on a biography of Theodore Roosevelt, maybe Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough or The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris. We'll see. I also might just want to read something fun after I finish my "books from the shelves" assignment.
  

For dinner tonight we're having a recipe from the NY Times food section. It's called "Buttery Breakfast Casserole" and it calls for sausage, but I substituted mushrooms, as recommended by some of the readers. It has to sit in the fridge for at least four hours, so it's doing that now. So all I have to do for the rest of the day is...

• Put away the kids' laundry.
• Help Teen B write his Romeo & Juliet paper and study for a math quiz.
  
• Help Teen A with his Spanish homework.
• Call Rocket Boy to talk about financial stuff. We're dealing with a lot right now. It's fine -- it's going to all work out and we'll be in good shape when it's over, but I have some big things to do to make that happen. I hate financial stuff.
  

A walk might be nice, since it's a pretty day. But I don't know. I'm thinking I might take a nap.