Easter Weekend Recap

Despite having a three day weekend, I feel about as worn out as Frodo did right after throwing Gollum into the fires of Mount Doom.

Remember in the last post, I bemoaned the fact that Mike the band leader was a bit less than organized with choosing the music for Friday's church service? Well, Thursday evening rolls around and lo and behold, when I checked the website we use for organizing services, we were still one song short.

Which meant that if he chose a song in the middle of the night, I would have pretty much zero time to learn it on the bass before the service Friday evening. I was already having trouble learning the three songs he had posted on Wednesday.

We'd been texting back and forth the whole week to come up with songs, so at around 11.00 PM on Thursday, I said hey, one of the songs I suggested has no music, only vocals, so that would save us the trouble of having to learn it on instruments. After thinking about it for a few minutes, Mike said perfect, we'll use that.

And you can lead the vocals.

In a moment of what I can only presume was sleeping pill-induced insanity, I said ok, and then went to bed.

Friday morning

I didn't have much time to stress about it during the day, because I had to do a ton of food shopping and then more baking. But then I had an hour to think about it on my way up to Dad's house.

By the time I got to the church for practice, I had consumed enough sedatives to kill a tyrannosaurus rex. They weren't really working.

But I got up on the stage, we practiced the other three songs, and then I sang this one.

 The other 2 vocalists backed me up after the first verse, so at least I wasn't singing the whole thing alone.

And then somehow, I was not nervous at all. Even when Mike the band leader said, 30 seconds before service started, that he wanted to do that song twice--as the opening and closing song--instead of just once at the end of service.

I mustn't have sounded that awful, because now they want me singing every other week.

I spent three hours on Saturday making the rainbow Spekkoek.

For some reason the top layers went a bit gooey overnight, which was very disappointing, but it tasted really good.

Easter Sunday began, as all holidays with Mumsy do, with fighting. I was shouted at because it is apparently my fault that there was no more vanilla extract, because I should have immediately gone out to the shops after making the Spekkoek to buy more, because apparently I have magical powers and should have known Little Sis needed vanilla extract on Sunday morning. Never mind the fact that Lil Sis had left barely a drop of it in the bottle to begin with and thus I didn't have enough for my baking.

remember the rage scale?

Rather than waiting around in the kitchen for the fighting to escalate, I kept silent, took the cast iron pan and half of the bacon outside (I don't like Irish bacon and we didn't have enough stove space for everything inside), and stayed there for rather a long time cooking the bacon on the barbecue.

During this time, Mumsy managed to sustain a rather severe burn off of the spatula she had left too close to the flame on the stove. (I was shouted at for this when I went inside to get some bread and a plate for the bacon. I went back outside and stayed there for nearly an hour.)

Since bacon grease tends to catch fire when there is too much of it in the pan and it reaches a certain temperature, I used a few slices of bread of soak up the excess grease.

Any of y'all ever eaten rye bread fried in bacon grease? IT IS FREAKING DELICIOUS. But I know my stomach, so I only had a teensy nibble before throwing the rest to the birds.

The backyard looked like a scene from the movie The Birds whilst I cooked the bacon. The grackles must have smelled it and so by the time I was done cooking, there were so many grackles in the nearby trees they were practically blotting out the sun. The noise was tremendous. They ate all of the fried bread with much enthusiasm.

Most of our guests had arrived by the time I went back inside, so the house was extremely crowded. I did not really get to enjoy our Easter fry up, as I spent most of the morning in the bathroom. (Remember the tiny nibble of fried bread? Apparently that's all it takes for my stomach to declare war on me.)

The rest of the day was uneventful, in a good way. I fled Mumsy's as soon as it was socially acceptable for me to do so, and picked up Drummerboy on the way up to Dad's.

Me, both Lil Bros, and Drummerboy all tried out Niecey G's new hoverboard in Dadum's driveway. It was a general fail, although Lil Bro #1 managed to stay upright for nearly a full minute. Niecey G naturally mastered it the second it came out of the box because she is still a child. Then we had a rather unexciting egg hunt, as Niecey G is the only child in the family at the moment. 

I feel bad for her that she has no cousins her age at these family events. The Easter egg hunts of my youth were like exercises in guerrilla warfare. She's totally missing out.

How about all y'all? Any good Easter stories to share?

TED IS A MESS

Another ramble because I just don't have any ideas/energy for a real post.

We did Easter eggs this past weekend with Niecey G. Lil Bro#1 definitely won with the Donald Trump Egg.

My egg, which took roughly 2 hours to paint with a tiny brush, was the ugliest of the lot and has been dubbed the Smallpox Egg.

Hopefully before Easter, I can get some good photos of all the eggs from Easters past. Stepmom always hollows them out so we can save them; we have like 5 boxes of coloured eggs up in the attic.

This week feels like it's speeding by too fast. I have to make 3 egg-and-bacon pies (one for Dad, one for Guitar Teacher, and one for Mumsy), bake a rainbow spekkoek,

and I also need to learn whatever songs we're playing at Friday's church service. Today is Wednesday, and Mike the band leader has yet to choose the songs.

Drummerboy is coming to Easter dinner/dessert at Dad's. (He can't come to the morning fry up at Mum's because he's playing in the Sunday church service.) I think the entire family is thoroughly confused as to the nature of our relationship and they're all too afraid to ask. I have no complaints, to be honest. We still hang out just as much, and we still have just as much fun together. If something more happens later, fine. If not, also fine.

What are the rest of you doing for Easter? Anything exciting?

Set me up and watch me unwind.

I felt like I had something to say earlier, but it seems to have escaped me. Therefore this post is going to be a sort of stream-of-consciousness ramble.

Right at this moment (15.15 on Tuesday afternoon), my biggest dilemma is currently whether or not to have another cup of coffee.

I think I will. Hold on while I go next door and steal the kettle....

.........

Why does the second cup of coffee of the day never taste as good as the first?

I need the coffee to resist the little box of horrors we received from the office supply people today.

So I had a lovely weekend upstate with Lil Bro#2. We didn't do much--some antique shopping, finding places to eat (there is very little up there in the way of culinary experiences), and walking around Letchworth State Park. Check out the photos, that place is amazing.

The white & red house at the end of the photo album is apparently haunted, so let me know if you spot any ghosts hanging about.

  

When I returned to the office yesterday (after taking only one day off), I had to sort my way through this:

I also had a surprise waiting for me from one of our nicer clients ("Broken Lots of Mirrors" category)

This thing is the size of a football. And in total contains about 4,000 calories of Brazilian chocolate.

  

I've had a very small piece so far, but in all honesty I'm still feeling kind of struggly with food. Some family members and friends have made comments about weight loss, and over the weekend Dadum and Stepmom kept trying to make me eat without commenting on the fact that I don't eat.

I don't know. It's not about losing weight. It's about dealing with stress, I guess. I try to eat, but most of the time I just ..............can't. Coffee with cream for breakfast. Maybe a second coffee for lunch. Some grilled chicken and a beer for dinner. That's usually it on weekdays.

I am now on so much medication you can hear my purse rattling from like 100 yards away.

Antidepressants, mood stabilizers, sedatives, tummy pills. If you're crazy and you know it, shake your meds.

 In other more positive news, Westley & the Witches has been reviewed by the lovely Janie Junebug.

And Elk's little book of illustrations also has its first review from Holly Hearts Art.

I think that's all I've got.

We are true professionals in my office.

The IT guy who destroyed my computer last week has upgraded all of our office computers to the new case management software. Naturally, none of us can figure out how to work most of it.

Except for one of the new features--we can now assign pictures to clients. 

You can imagine how mature and professional we are acting with this new feature.

I hide in the office next door when she's here. The last time she called, Bossman received the following message:

No one can hide from that one. She has her own filing cabinet of scorned fury.

In other news, I took off work tomorrow so I can go visit Lil Bro#2 at uni. Houghton is a dry town, so I have packed enough whisky to burn down a small village. 

I was trained in a hard school, and I fight accordingly.

I've started and stopped this post like five times now and I just end up losing the energy to finish it... It's going to be a long sort of cranky ramble so feel free to skip this one.

Drummerboy wants nothing more than friendship. I can understand that. He's got a lot to deal with and the next few months will bring more crap to deal with. For example, in July, his older son gets out of jail and will be moving in with him, and possibly so will his son's 2 small children. I cannot imagine Drummerboy is keen on the idea of potentially having to introduce his son to a girlfriend who is the same age as said son.

He did stress that he does not want to lose me as a friend, and doesn't want to hang out any less than we have been, but would understand if I decided to stop spending time with him.

I really DO enjoy spending time with him. Do I want more? I don't even really know. My emotions have been a jumbled mess over the last couple of years, and what with all the medications I currently take, half the time I don't even know what emotion it is that my brain is trying to communicate to me.

So I take another sedative until I can't hear it anymore.

In other news.......

Dreams are a huge pain in my ass.

I almost called my guitar teacher at 5.30 AM this morning because I had a dream that his house burned down and he died and I woke up in a blind panic.

I settled with texting him at around 9 to ask him something unrelated to dying in a fire, just to make sure he responded.

(He did; he's fine.)

But now I'm anxious about it. What if it's some kind of premonition? I've lost count of the number of times my prophetic dreams have come true, but it's kind of awkward telling someone to please be careful of fire and maybe check your house for potential fire hazards without sounding like a raving lunatic.

I also know the logical/psychological side to a lot dreams. Fire in one's dreams is often an indication that you feel your emotions have gone out of control.

Emotions as I have said before, are a huger pain in my ass.

Confession time?

[I have not told anyone about this at all ever, and I have tried to keep it bottled up, but I really need to get it out, even if it's just on the internet.]

For about the past year, I have had a GIANT crush on my guitar teacher. 

(I mentioned this very vaguely last summer; the situation has not improved.)

Not even a crush if I'm honest. Like more of an I'd-marry-you-immediately-and-have-like-ten-of-your-babies roller coaster of emotions.

Don't get me wrong, I really like(d?) Drummerboy, and I was praying that spending more time with him would help with this, but as yet I would drop everything and run off with my guitar teacher to any location of his choosing. Like for reals, I'd even stay living in Bergen County if he asked me to. However, he is F**KING MARRIED. Happily married. So I have held my silence and kept my emotions at bay for a [torturous] year.

It does not help that we spend 30+ minutes of my guitar lessons just waffling about Game of Thrones, the Walking Dead, cat stories, etc. It does not help that he makes me laugh a lot. It does not help that he is now one of the biggest fans of my books and in the last few weeks has somehow bullied like 20+ of his friends into buying them and liking the facebook page. He also beat everybody to getting a prize for reviewing Westley & the Witches.

I know the obvious solution. Get the hell out of this situation. Find a new guitar teacher. Try and forget.

The problem is he's a really fricking awesome teacher. I know he will never be more than that. And my hour+ spent there every week is like therapy.

I just don't know. I haven't been eating very much.

The zoloft gets upped next week, as does the xanax. Next stop, Bergen Pines and a haloperidol drip. ......that actually sounds like a glorious vacation. 

In the meantime, I shall continue binge-watching Vikings and playing Vikings Bingo.

accidental gardener

A few years ago, someone gave us an orchid as a thank you gift for doing a good job on their case. When the flowers withered and fell off, Bosslady presumed the plant was dead and was going to throw it out. 

I've never been much for gardening (right now for example, I am totally failing at mini roses), but I know enough about plants to know that flowers are not immortal. Circle of life and whatnot. 

So I confiscated Bosslady's orchid, cut off the dead bits, and kept it on my windowsill. Sometime later, I confiscated a second orchid. Both of them have bloomed twice since then. This past Christmas, when Mumsy was certain that her new orchid was dead because the flowers had wilted, I took that as well. 

All three orchid plants are currently sprouting new flowers under my care. I feel like a wizard.

^this one's sick I think, but I'm researching how to try and fix it. 

I got myself a mini orchid this week, as a prize for being a wizard. 

I'm getting sick of pink, though. I might go out later and buy a blue one.*

*This is why I'm poor.