Happy Easter

Ann H GabhartAnn's Posts, One Writer's Journal

Hope all of you had a blessed Easter day with time to celebrate with your family and church. Darrell and I did some celebrating this morning with both our sons and their families at church. We filled up two pews. Eight beautiful, healthy and (Grammy thinks) brilliant grandchildren. The ninth one was there too, but she’s still being shy about making her appearance in the world. We had another “this is going to be her birthday” day last Friday, but she said not yet. So we’ll see what happens next week.

But the other grandbabies were all in fine fettle. The twin boys didn’t raise a ruckus in church and the older kids sat quietly and listened to the preacher. It must have been our day to receive one of those everyday miracles we don’t always notice. At any rate, they were all very good. On the way out of church to the car, Katie, the three-year-old, told Br. Fred goodby and then she said, “Goodby, Jesus.” Her mama reminded her that we don’t say goodby to Jesus and leave him at the church, but that he goes with us wherever we go.

We had an Easter egg hunt here at the house after dinner. My chocolate lab, Dub, found the first egg. So I ruined his fun, got out the leash and made him be an observer only. The kids found all the eggs faster than it took me and the oldest grandkid to hide them. I always put pennies and other change and a few dollar bills in some of the eggs, and my grandson likes finding the eggs that rattle. I never liked Easter egg hunts when I was a kid because I was never fast enough to find any eggs, but today we had plenty to go around and everybody ended up with full baskets and enough candy to keep them bouncing off the walls for a while. It was probably a good thing that they all got to church too late for the little Easter egg hunt they had for the Sunday school kids there.

One of my readers who says she can’t comment here for some technical reason nevertheless sent a great comment on my April Fools’ day post about Oscar. She thought maybe I was going to say that I had an Oscar Mayer hot dog on April Fools’. I told her I’d share her e-mail smile with the rest of you. I’m glad my real dog, Oscar, wasn’t an April Fools’ joke. He’s a lot of fun.

Well now that we’ve had fun with April Fools’ day and celebrated the blessings of Easter, next week we have to stare tax day right in the eye. That’s rarely anybody’s favorite day. At least nobody but my granddaughter, Ashley. She’ll be six on April 15th. She’s way too young to worry about taxes. So instead of taxes, I’ll just think about the fun gift Ashley is to our family. Besides we’re going to mail in our taxes Monday. We like to be early. Hope you are so blessed as to need to pay taxes, but I imagine you might rather keep thinking about Easter blessings while you save a little chocolate to eat on Wednesday to keep the spirits up.

Maybe I’ll have baby news to report on Wednesday. If not, I’ll have to start worrying about the Southern Kentucky Book Fest this coming Saturday. But babies can’t be rushed. Books can. At least the words in them, but you know I’m not sure the story can be rushed. At least not mine. Those story words have to grow and accumulate and eventually spill out on the writing surface whether that’s a computer screen or a notebook.

I’m looking forward to meeting readers at the Southern Kentucky Book Fest on Saturday. I like talking to all of you face to face, so if you’re in the area be sure to come by and say hi. I’ll be part of a panel at 1 p.m. Check out my website for more details. It sounds like fun.

Don’t eat too many chocolate bunny ears. I’m relieved most of the candy I bought went home with the grandkids. My will power’s a lot better when the candy is at their houses instead of mine.