Today is another lovely day, sunny and bright and warmer than yesterday but still a bit chilly. Showers are predicted for later. Nala was out for a long time earlier lying in the sun in the backyard. She has a favorite spot. Henry’s favorite spot is my bed.

I think spring is taking hold of me. I’m doing the oddest chores. Yesterday I went through my Bolga baskets and cleared a few things. I cleaned the shelves in the fridge and tossed out of date condiments, some really old condiments. I polished odd spots here in the den and moved stuff around to make the room look less cluttered. Now the clutter is still here but mostly hidden. I’ll make maps.

When I was young, I believed in holiday magic. I never questioned rabbits laying eggs. I never thought about the Easter Bunny delivering all those baskets. If I had given any thought to it, I think the magic would have disappeared. We colored eggs. We hunted for them when I was really young. Once I found the golden egg. We went shopping for Easter clothes. When I was little, I dressed up in fluffy dresses, white gloves, patent leather shoes and hats with ribbons. We all wore about the same outfit. I think it was sort of a little girl’s Easter uniform back then.

My Easter basket had green grass on the bottom. It stuck to candy I’d started eating but put back into the basket to save for later. We always got a chocolate rabbit. The ears went first. The jelly beans were big. I think they all tasted the same. We got those hard giant looking eggs with white middles. They were strewn in the grass with the jelly beans. Peeps, yellow Peeps, were in the basket too. They were still mushy. We’d get a new stuffed animal and a coloring book and crayons. I remember getting a yo-yo once which I never mastered. I got Jacks. My mother taught me the game. She was unbeatable.

Easter dinner was ham with mashed potatoes and vegetables, probably peas and corn and maybe asparagus for my dad. My mother decorated the table with a paper tablecloth, and we used paper napkins. I thought the table was always beautiful.

In the afternoon, we usually went to my grandparents’ house in East Boston. The tribe was there. My grandmother always gave us Easter treats, and if we bothered my grandfather, he’d send us away with a dime, big money back then.

I haven’t bought Easter clothes in too many years to remember the last time. I have a spring looking dress with flowers, and I’ve worn that out to dinner. I also have an Easter fascinator. It is a round white hat with a flowered border around the middle. It has multi-colored feathers stuck in that border. Every time I have worn it to dinner, it gets noticed, for good reason!