Easter Invitation

Peter Cottontail, of the Happy Trail, has requested the honor of your presence at his home for a fine feast. If you should choose, you would be asked to bring only yourself and your loved ones, or possibly a sweet treat to end the meal, as Peter is positive it is practical for him to prepare the porridge properly.

Pretty Patsy,
Pepe and Petunia Cottontail are pleased to publish their plan to participate in the Paschal Party to be presented by Peter at his pleasant paternal pad. Personally, we are pleased to participate in the preparation of a pastry or pie to please the palate of our Papa.
Pleasant Parting!
Petunia :)

Pearlesent Patsy,

We are pleasantly pleased to prononce that Puth, Paula and I, Papajr, will be present for the preceeding feast at Peter Cottontails palace at Happy Trails. Since Peter has a pencentce for preparing and presenting the porridge it would be our pleasure to prepare and provide some possibly perfect post porridge pudding.
Pleasant Passage, Papajr


Alas, K. Paul and I prearranged to partake in a previously planned party during the time period of the feast. Our presence is required at the purposefully plump and plush buffet at the Old Salt for brunch, then we plan to return to Peter Cottontail's palace at Happy Trails to partake in the puddings and pastries provided by pleasant pals, including potentially playful palate pleasers provided by K. Paul and I :-)


I am please to proclaim my presence for Peter's fine feast. I shall provide a peanut butter pie for all to partake in pigging out!

pleasantly,

Petula

Greetings,

Kelly and I will be delighted to be there. I don't know exactly if we'll bring a dessert or not, since it seems there is quite a sufficient amount of desserts already being broughten (yeah, I said it). Just in case you didn't notice, this entire email doesn't contain a certain letter, and while you'll notice there aren't any "Z's", that's not the letter with which I am referring.

Cheers, and see you soon,
Nick
Also, it's not "V".



The eldest progeny of Peter's clan does indeed intend to partake of the feast, having parleyed with Peter proper he feels that all protocalls have been provided for. Attending will be the perfect one as well as the various wee ones from the southern litter.

Decisions!

So far I'm leaning towards teh one on the left.

The Joys of Memere-hood

The joys of being a Memere are too numerous to count.   Spending time with the children is of course the biggest joy.   Having Emily over on a Sunday afternoon is a blast.

Baking Cookies

Making Play Dough with the extra flour

Painting

Reading a Story

And one of my other joys of Memere-hood is making cute little outfits for the grand-daughters.

This one is for this little Angel

Elsie....two months old.

Classic!

Classic four year old painting!   Blue sky, green grass, brigh sunshine, and hair down to her toes.   Beautiful!!

Time? What time?

As you've probably noticed (or maybe you haven't) it's been a week since I posted anything.  Not because I haven't been doing anything, but because I've been doing so much!  As you saw on the last post, we are in the middle of another renovation project.   This not only takes up a bunch of time, but makes a disaster of the house as well. 

The weekend went like this:

Friday night - Groton Open Mic.   This is a very fun open mic that we don't get to often enough.  It's 45 minutes from the house, so it's run-home-from-work-hop-in-the-car-and-GO!   Luckily, they have the most scrumptious food there, so we don't mind eating dinner there.   We got home at 12:30am.

Saturday - I worked from 9am-1pm.   Went to Home Cheapo and got everything needed to paint the bedroom.  Painted the ceiling.  Made supper, then went out to the Bull Run to see some good friends perform.  Got home at 12:30am.

Sunday - Slept in (8am).   Read part of the newspaper, made breakfast for Hubby and I, entertained grand-daughter from 11:30-around 4pm.  (made cookies, painted, played, etc.)   Then painted woodwork, Hubby made supper,  and I collapsed in front of the TV for a few hours.  

Monday AM - 1/2 day today so I had to work 11-2:30.    I went grocery shopping, did the budget, vacuumed and cleaned the kitchen before work, and now I'm home and hoping to finish painting woodwork and doors in the bedroom, and PERHAPS (if I can find the energy) start doing the edging on the walls.   My goal is to have the bedroom walls painted so we can varnish the floor this weekend.

And there you have it.   I fun-filled, hard-working, exhausting and exhilirating weekend.   It goes by much too quickly.

Work Hard and Have Some Fun

When Hubby and I first bought our house, we ran ourselves ragged because we were so enthusiastic about renovating.   It didn't take us long to realized that we could burn ourselves out very quickly.  So now we try to subscribe to the "Work Hard, Play Hard" philosophy.

Our work this weekend consisted of finishing the sanding in the bedroom.  Altogether, I estimated that Hubby and  I put in a total of 35 man/woman hours sanding the floor.    But I like how it came out.

It's still rustic and original, but cleaner than it was before.   Now I'll be able to paint the ceiling and walls, then put a couple coats of varnish on the floor.

Our fun for the weekend was going to Winnikinni Castle a few towns over and enjoying a lovely walk along the water and up to the castle.

And for a little added extra fun, we went with my brother and his wife and daughter to Kowloon's for chinese food on Saturday night, and went to visit my Dad before our walk on Sunday.

A lovely weekend.

On A More Serious Note

Unbelievably, I've started this post four times.  I'm not sure what I want to say, but feel compelled to say something.   There are situations in life that change you, some for the better, some for the worse.

We've had a situation going on in our office for quite a long time.  Three years in fact.   There are seven people in our office who get along well.  And there's one who does not.   Unfortunately, it's that one bad apple that spoiled the whole damn bunch.  (I think there's a song in that!)

I've always subscribed to the philosophy that it's your own attitude toward people that should dictate how you relate to them.   In this case, with someone so offensive, so aggravating, so completely unprofessional and out of line, my normal attitude would be to avoid this person.   However, since I work with her, it was impossible.

Next scenario would be to change jobs.   I thought of doing that over and over again - in fact, Hubby mentioned many times that "there's no law saying you can't find another job".    But other than this person, I like my job - I like the people I work with - I like my supervisor.  I like working in my own hometown.   And frankly, there was a certain stubbornness  -  a little voice saying "Why should I be the one to change jobs, when she's the one who should leave?"

So I stayed.  And complained, and was aggravated and at times infuriated.   I have to give kudos to Hubby, who let me rant and rave night after night, then calmed me down and made me change my attitude.  This attitude would last until about an hour after I went to work in the morning, when this co-worker would manage to infuriate me all over again.

Did we complain? yes.  Did we have meetings?  yes.  Did we file grievances? yes.   And for some reason we could not understand, this person continued working there.

Finally, this past week, she went over the line one time too many, and they fired her.  It's like a shade has been raised on a sunny day.   For the first time in years, I got up on a Monday morning and didn't dread going in to work.   And the day was so...........normal.    We chatted about our weekend, we worked hard, we took care of our customers, we had a quiet lunch.....all the normal workday things that are taken for granted. 

And I relished every one of them.   I know as time goes on, I'll lose that feeling of intense gratitude that the difficult times are over and we can have a normal workday.  But I hope that doesn't happen too soon.  I want to be thankful for my job, for my co-workers, for having a place to go to for 8 hours a day that I enjoy.  

Life is good..........