Easter celebration
Recent Easters have been pretty crummy weather-wise but this one came through with cool, windy and sunny weather. Some of us were talking about how Easter frocks are never made for the real weather that comes this time of year. What one gets on the racks are summery dresses when the reality is quasi-wintry weather. Anyway, the day before, Veeka participated in an egg hunt at St. Andrews where she happily collected lots of plastic eggs with stickers and some candy. We returned there the next day for Sunday service, followed by a leisurely afternoon with old friends Karen and Tim Forsyth and their son David. It was this time 30 years ago that I was about to fly to France to spend 10 weeks running about Europe. I based myself in Paris, where Karen - who was almost but not quite engaged to Tim at the time - was working as an au pair. It was a fabulous spring running around Europe after 3 years of working my tail off as a police reporter at the Enterprise Courier in Oregon City. And so, 3 decades later, here we are. It is good to have old friends. We even dyed Easter eggs; something I have not done in who-knows-how-long.
The aforementioned Wall Street Journal piece got 37,000 (!) hits the weekend it ran and that was before it was picked up on Drudge that Monday morning. The young serpent-handling pastor I wrote about was overjoyed at the news - and then this week he was laid off of his minimally paying job at the local supermarket. Am hoping that someone in the IGA hierarchy didn't go after him because of the article. As he has a wife and 4 kids 5 and under, I am very concerned about him because there aren't tons of jobs in La Follette, Tennessee. Also on the writing front, I got another Post magazine article published this weekend. You can read it here. I only had two weeks to put it together but it was fun - has nothing to do with religion but it does concern a new local university that gives out BS and MS degrees in animal studies.
Currently presents and cards are arriving on our doorstep for that big Day of Days: Veeka's 7th birthday. I just finished making 21 pink strawberry cupcakes starting at 10 pm for her little classmates to eat up. Invites to her birthday party have already gone out and I've bought some of the decorations. I sent out 13 invites, most of them to her classmates and although a few have told Veeka they are coming, none of the parents have contacted me (except one to say her kiddo can't make it) which is pretty stunning; what do these folks think the word "RSVP" means?? So I have no idea how to plan, how many adults and/or teens to ask to come by to help, how much food to buy, punch to make, etc. etc. Since I needed to get some branches of one of my backyard trees cut down, I had the lovely idea of putting a tree house up there. Veeka is dying to have one ever since I told her that I read books in trees when I was little. And Oma did the same thing. And Veeka is just starting to read. But there are no climbable trees nearby. Then I got the estimate for how much it'd cost. Sigh. It's about $1,200. Yes, I know the materials are $400+ and the labor is $600+, but still...Am taking contributions for Veeka's Treehouse Fund if anyone feels so moved!