Weekend Ramblings and Why I Feel “Blah” about Easter

Well, I woke up to the news that the worldwide death toll from the coronavirus has surpassed the 100,000 mark. Great and good morning to me! 

I have been trying to stay relatively removed from constantly reading and watching the news coverage of it all. It just gets to be a bit too much for me. There is literally 24/7 coverage on and after a while I just can’t take it anymore. I like to hear the updates once or twice a day, and I try to stay generally informed, but I just do a little better with it all if I bury my head in the sand for at least part of the day I guess. 

It does sound like there is some evidence that the curve is flattening some and some reports I saw this morning said the U.S. may have hit its peak daily death toll. That sounds like (maybe?) things are finally starting to move in the right direction. Fingers crossed these predictions are correct. 





Easter plans, or lack thereof… 

It is officially Easter weekend. In a way I wish that we could just totally skip over it this year. While I love the holiday itself and the religious meaning of it, I usually am not that into the secular side of it, though it is all very cute with the bunny and eggs and all of that. I have thought about this a lot over the years, since I notice myself feeling kind of “blah” about Easter prep every year.

I think there are 3 main reasons I don’t generally get that excited about Easter. 

1. Back when I worked as an inpatient nurse, I had to work every Easter Sunday for like 5 years in a row when the kids were little. Easter is not considered a holiday in the nursing world, so working it or not just depends on if it’s your normal weekend to work or not. As luck had it, my every other weekend rotation fell on Easter for a bunch of years in a row. So Easter just became sort of a hassle. I wanted to do the whole Easter bunny/ tradition thing, but I had to work from 7 am- 7:30 pm on Easter Sunday! We had to get creative and did all sorts of crazy things, from hunting for eggs at 5:30 am before work, to leaving notes the week before on the front door for the Easter Bunny asking if he could come to our house a different day….. Oh, fun times. It turned into a big headache and the whole thing just got super annoying. 

2. Spring weather in Wisconsin is terrible. This is by FAR my least favorite season here. I always see the adorable girls in the magazines in their little spring Easter dresses, with the open toe shoes and bare shoulders, frolicking across the yard with their baskets, scooping up the brightly colored eggs in the warm sunshine….. Well, this is our weather forecast for Easter Sunday: 


I think this is actually warmer than it has been in the past, too. It always seems to rain on Easter. And it’s cold. And wet. And muddy in the yard. And usually windy. Every year we say we are going to try for an outdoor Easter egg hunt, and we NEVER get to do it. 

3. I go all out for Christmas in our household. Our holiday season lasts from basically Halloween until mid January. Haha. Embarrassing but true. I just love it all- music, decorations, events, traditions. You name it, we do it. But, this is also all very exhausting. I think come April (Easter time) I am still recovering from Christmas (yes, 4 months later. It takes me that long to recuperate and be ready to start ramping back up again in the fall). I just generally have no desire to really do a whole bunch of extra “stuff” at this time of year. We always dye Easter eggs and do the baskets, but that’s usually about it. I think I have a little bunny somewhere I might dig out today and set out on the window sill. There. I decorated. 

4. (I thought of one more) Easter Sunday does not have the same secular traditions in Mexico. Ivan didn’t grow up really doing anything on Easter except maybe going to mass. School was always closed all of “semana santa” (holy week) for him and I think a lot of people tend to go out of town or on vacation that week. So he is always VERY take it or leave it about all of the traditions. He goes along with it if I want to partake, but he really could care less. We usually do have a nice meal, but like I said, due to my work schedule in the past, we never were really able to develop any big recurring traditions. Part of me feels sad about this, but part of me doesn’t really care (see above: still burned out from Christmas.)

I have a few things I need to get moving on here today..

Weekend To-Do list:

• ~2 hours of work

• grocery shop (I haven’t been to the store myself yet during the pandemic, so this should be fun)

• figure out what the heck to put in the Easter baskets! (This is the definitely the least prepared I have ever been for this since being a parent. I usually go out and buy some little “gift” type things for their baskets- tennis balls, fun markers, new chalk, etc. but have NOT done that this year. We are actually mostly planning to put some money in the eggs since at their ages the kids will probably like this better than anything else. Also, it is easy.) I am praying that the grocery store still has some Easter candy in stock and I can just grab some handfuls as I walk down the aisle and throw it in my cart. 

• Workout x2 (I have a Cardio Fix on the schedule for today plus the 10 min Ab workout, and an Upper Fix for tomorrow)

• Some cleaning! We need to at least do a good deeper clean of the living room/ sunroom and kitchen. I can guarantee there are popcorn kernels embedded in the carpet and the floor needs a good mopping in the kitchen. Between schooling my children and trying to work, the days have felt very full. Cleaning has not made its way up my priority list much this week, but I think it’s time to bump it up there. 

• Read! (Hopefully? This list is getting a bit unrealistic now) I am reading two good books right now, though my reading time was rather light this week. 

• Non-fiction: Cazando a El Chapo In Spanish. The English translation means “Hunting El Chapo”, and it’s about the DEA agent who hunted and caught famed drug lord “El Chapo” (you need to say that in a slow, deep, scary sounding Mexican accent to sound right. Ellll Chapppoooo…) At least that is how I always say it in my head.

• Fiction: Finding Grace This is a book I picked up randomly from the “New” shelf at the library before our trip to Mexico, a psychological thriller about a little girl who goes missing while walking home from a friend’s house. But, shockingly, the parents may have some secret baggage….. things are not what they appear!! What?? There is going to be some major twist at the end??? I never would have guessed 🙂 I don’t read a ton of fiction so sometimes it makes me chuckle, but so far it is a good, well written book and I’m liking it!

My current book choices