Easter and springtime

Happy Easter! And welcome to the second quarter of 2026. This is a strange Easter, as they all are when your kids grow up. Rocket Boy really wanted to hide eggs for the twins (one of whom isn't even here, staying over at his girlfriend's house as usual), but instead, facing reality, he offered up our collection of plastic eggs to our neighborhood listserv on Friday. And someone responded right away, and after some miscommunication finally picked up a big sack of them on Saturday morning. 

So now we have no more eggs (except the random ones that constantly appear and disappear around the house). I didn't even set out our bunnies, as I usually do, or our Easter picture books. All we have on the coffee table are a few jellybeans.

Nevertheless, it feels like a special day. I'm wearing my new yellow shirt, which I think of as my Easter egg shirt. Rocket Boy came with us to Starbucks, which he doesn't usually do. He was hoping there would be a special Easter drink, which of course there wasn't. But Teen B got the iced lavender cream chai, which has a purple top, kind of Easter-y. I got the toasted coconut latte. Rocket Boy just got a chai latte.

Rocket Boy wants to have a special dinner. I, of course, don't, but I compromised. We bought asparagus at Trader Joe's yesterday, and I bought the ingredients for a cheerful spring salad (butter lettuce, avocado, oranges). We had dinner at Aunt Alice's in Longmont and came home with a whole strawberry cream pie. But I told him I don't want to kill anything in honor of Easter. We can have leftovers for a main course (the refrigerator is overflowing) or we can have an omelet. No ham (dead pig), no lamb (dead sheep), not even seafood (dead fish). Unless he wants to handle the whole thing himself. I'm not partaking.

Easter feels like a day of new beginnings, despite the fact that I don't go to church anymore. Coming so early in April this year, it's right at the start of the second quarter, so that's a good time for a refresh.

In the first quarter of the year, what did I do? I read 34 books, saw two movies, went to two concerts and one musical, and saw the Pissarro exhibit at the Denver Art Museum. We took an awesome Spring Break trip through the Upper South. 

I saw my doctor for my yearly physical. I did not lose any weight, in fact, I gained a few pounds (due to eating vast amounts of candy). I was kind of up and down with exercising, some good weeks, some bad. I did not do much writing, nor much housecleaning. I didn't have the energy. 

I kept the house running, cooked dinner, helped with homework, all that jazz. I did the taxes! Our preparer finished them this week and sent them in! Time to watch our bank account for those big refunds (which I'll use to pay our property taxes and the house insurance, sigh).

So, spring quarter, April-May-June. What are my plans?

Well, I would like to read another 30 books or so, see a few more movies. I really want to see the sheep detective movie when it comes out in May, and I'm on the library's waiting list for the dvd of "Hamnet," although I'm number 53, so we'll see. I also ordered a dvd of "Pola X" from Amazon -- that's the movie based on Melville's Pierre. I felt silly buying it, since I'll probably only watch it once, but the only library in the Prospector system that had it won't let it go beyond "local use." And money is so meaningless right now. So I ordered it. What the heck.

I hope to go to three more concerts this quarter -- at least -- the spring band, orchestra, and choir concerts at the high school. Maybe also the spring play at the other high school. Then there's graduation, got to go to that. Before that, in two weeks, there's Prom, so I'll have to shepherd Teen A through that. We still need to get him a tie. And there will be other end-of-year, end-of-high school activities, I'm sure.

I'm not planning to go to Cousin June's memorial service in three weeks. Rocket Boy and Teen A bought their plane tickets this week (and I've already paid off the credit card). I'm sorry I don't want to go, but I don't. I have a very strong negative feeling about it, and I'm respecting that. I'm glad the family will be represented, and I think Rocket Boy and Teen A will have a good time together. Without me there, they may do something wild and crazy, which would be great.

Maybe we'll plan a family trip during the month of June, I'll see.

This quarter I also have a lot of plans for getting things done, and I hope I'm not planning too much. I had no energy in the first quarter of the year -- who's to say anything will be different in the second quarter? But maybe the sunshine and warmth will help.

1. I want to be more religious about exercise. I want to go on a walk every day possible (i.e., excepting days when the weather's terrible or I'm sick or we just have too many other things scheduled). I also want to get back into doing stretch videos and lifting weights. Ideally, I would have two exercise periods each weekday: a stretch video or weight lifting AND a walk. And extra walks on weekends.
    
2. I want to start doing yardwork again every weekday morning, 20-30 minutes. Got to get back to cutting down those junipers, even though it's not much fun. At the start of May, plant my flowers (I don't think I need to wait for the last freeze date this year, sigh). 
   
   
3. I want to write, at least a short bit every day.
   
   
4. I want to get back into decluttering the house. Specifically, I want to clean out the twins' room in preparation for them going to college. I probably wouldn't start that until late May, after graduation. I thought I could do it gradually, assign myself to one small section of the room each week (a set of shelves, a section of the closet, the space under their beds, the dresser they share). I used to think this was something they would do themselves, but the fact that they're basically not speaking to each other has made that impossible. Teen A has worked on the area around his bed a little, but that's all. No reason to wait for them to sort it out. I should just get busy. 

If I'm going to do all this -- or even a small part of it -- I'm going to need to borrow time from other places. What do I spend time on now that I could give up for these activities?

Well, reading. Maybe my goal shouldn't be to read 10 books each month, maybe it should only be 7. Or just however many it turns out to be.

I think mainly, though, my time gets used up in feeling sick and having no energy. I don't know what to do about that. I did think I might try to eat better. For example, eat lunch every day, don't snack on candy and then just wait until I feel awful to drag myself out to the kitchen and stare unhappily at the contents of the refrigerator (incidentally, it's currently 2:23 pm and I have not had lunch). Plan lunches, even. Buy bread (we have none at the moment) and make myself a peanut butter and jam sandwich at 1 pm every day. Or eat leftovers. Or cottage cheese. But something. 

I also spend a lot of time avoiding things. Every night I make a to-do list for the following day. Certain things on it I do pretty much without thinking: feed cats, start laundry. Some things I don't want to do, but I do them (emptying the dishwasher, eating breakfast). Other things I actively avoid, and that takes time and energy. Examples are the litter boxes and hand-dishwashing. I hate cleaning the litter boxes because I have to bend over and that bothers my stomach. I can't get through the three boxes without triggering an episode of heartburn! So of course I avoid them. 

Hand-dishwashing isn't painful, but it isn't fun. We have so many dishes that can't go in the dishwasher, and most of them are large -- big pots and pans, ancient cookie sheets, and worst of all, our reusable to-go containers, which we take with us to restaurants, keep in the fridge full of leftovers, and Rocket Boy takes his lunch to work in them. It just seems like there's always a stack of them waiting to be washed, and they are such a pain, full of nooks and crannies. The photo here is what I actually have waiting for me at this very moment. FOUR to-go containers, plus a small cookie sheet. Ugh. It's impossible to wash them without splattering myself. Their lids are attached, so they're big and they don't really fit in the sink.

Complain, complain. 

I think the only way to keep from having tasks like this derail me is to not plan to do them early in the day. Schedule them for the evening, when Rocket Boy might even do them for me (he won't do the litter boxes, but he might do dishes). 

Well, I don't know. I'm probably planning too much and I'll probably totally fail at all of it. But all I can do is try. 

Something else that I want to get done is Teen B's driver's license. I told him this week that we need to either do that OR get him an ID. He said, "why can't I just take the test?" So we agreed that on April 14-15, when the kids have the day off due to state testing, we'll go out and do some practice driving. And then I will schedule his test.

Once that's done, whatever the outcome, we need to apply for passports. Rocket Boy convinced Teen A to get his last year, which was smart. I want to get mine renewed and I want Teen B to get one too. Of course, if the stupid SAVE act passes, a LOT of other people will be doing the same thing, but we'll just get in line. 

And so on, one task after another. In the beautiful time which is spring.