Happy Easter, everyone! I hope this finds you well and enjoying lots of bonus family time. Currently, I am listening to Annie rustling around the kitchen I just cleaned, getting everyone's lunch ready. After that we'll have a mandatory walk partway around our neighborhood's busier than ever three-mile loop. It is spring break for the kids. I saw this morning on Facebook that this is many families' first day of remote learning. We've been going at it hard for almost a month here, and it has definitely had its ups and downs. I am enjoying the break from it, while at the same time trying to brainstorm ways to make it go a little better once we go back next Monday. Timmy, typically an excellent student, is finding it very difficult to be motivated in a home environment, and I'm worried his teacher is going to show up one day to throttle us both.

Here are a few Easter pictures:

All of the children and grandchildren on Tim's mom's side of the family have macrame Easter baskets that Aunt Jayne and her daughter Lura made.

This is Tim's childhood Easter basket. These baskets sure have grown over the years.

Easter Sunday was also Carolyn's birthday, so we Zoomed with everybody in Massachusetts, singing happy birthday to Grandma and blowing out candles in our own homes. Annie made her delicious chocolate cake with dark chocolate frosting (everything from scratch), and it is decadent. The kids can barely eat more than a few bites at a time, but for me it goes down way too easily! 

Last year around this time, Carolyn was hospitalized for a very rough bout of flu and for breathing problems, so they are taking every precaution when it comes to coronavirus. It has just been her and Tim Sr at home for weeks on end, which must seem really strange to them both, their home usually being a hub of activity. Their kids used to make fun of their overstuffed pantry with its sagging shelves, home to an untold number of non-perishables as well as paper goods (where some members of the family may have liked to "shop"). Once the toilet paper started flying off store shelves everywhere and everyone started isolating, Tim joked that his parents locked the doors and said, "Who's laughing now?"🤣 

Last Easter at our North Carolina rental. Next will be at our own home!

With the world going crazy around us, we managed to complete the purchase of our very first home together. It is undergoing some renovation and painting inside before we move in at the end of next month. We also have a vision for how we want the front of the house to look -- not half hidden by trees and shrubs, for one thing. There's so much we want to do, it's overwhelming. One thing at a time... I will write a new post with some "before and after" of the interior. I am so excited to see it done! There were a couple things about this house that really had us hesitating about buying it even though we loved lots of things about it, it was a good value in a great kid-friendly neighborhood. One of those issues is being addressed right now, with a couple more to follow in the future, and a couple more on the wishlist. Any time I start to feel anxious about the what and the when of getting things done, I remind myself that we've gotten ourselves a beautiful house during what is a very hard time for many; and not only that, because my husband puts my happiness above his own, that house is in eastern North Carolina. We are together, we are healthy, and we are getting ready to move into our own house. It's important for me to keep this perspective when I go crazy wondering what next month, and the month after, and the month after that, is going to look like. 

My new screened-in porch view