April 30th – We Made It!

Last official day of the Blog-Along.
Last day of Camp NaNoWriMo.
And this happened a couple of days ago.
My validated word count exceeded my goal.
YAY!  I made it thanks to the blogging.

That’s the one thing I really love about camp. There aren’t many rules and you set your own goals for the month.  I love that I have been able to blog everyday, even on a day when it would have been easier to say forget it.  When some of it was hard. Some of it, made me feel very exposed. Which led to the “wtf were you thinking” moments.  It’s easier to sometimes write about the hard stuff on my not so secret but still sorta secret blog.  I’ve had it for ten years.  But I don’t use my real name on it, which is why it’s sorta secret.

Yesterday, ended up being one of those days.  I wound up with a headache that made me feel like if I turned my head one way or another, I’d pull a muscle.  And then my back was all hurty. I unexpectedly had to people yesterday.  Though I mostly stayed in my little corner because I just wasn’t up to it.  They weren’t here to see me anyway so I guess it’s fine. I dunno.

I thought taking a shower last night would help a little. But the water actually hurt.  I would try to let it hit those very sore places and couple almost brought me to my knees.  It’s a very odd sensation to have water hurt.  It’s right up there with loose clothing feeling like a vice.  These feelings are something I’m just not used to and I’m not sure I can get used to them.  It’s frustrating too, to have people that don’t understand the pain and it’s levels that range from minor nuisance to down right stabbing and knee dropping.

I don’t even like going to the doctor about it because he’s so dismissive.  It’s like he doesn’t care what I’m there for, just what other services he can get me to sign up for. The very first time I went to this doctor was for bleeding in between cycles, which was new to me.  He did a pap and exam.  He stated he didn’t like how things looked and was going to refer me to the OB/GYN that is considered a specialist to have him look at it.  The next thing I know, he’s talking cancer and hysterectomy and other stuff.  Talk about jumping the gun!!!  I eventually got in to see the “specialist” because he is only in for them twice a month.  This doctor turned out to be the very same doctor “mom” goes to.  And he takes one look and says its nothing, just polyps.  PHEW!  I hate going to see doctor asshat, but with no insurance and no income, my choices are very limited.  “Mom” says we’re going to try and find me a better doctor.  Luckily I don’t have to go very often.

It’s probably because  of doctors like him that I don’t go regularly, or when I have my chest pains and trouble breathing.  I was 18 when I first started experiencing that.  Once, it got so bad I told my mother to take me to the ER.  They made me wait for hours before they checked me, if you can call it that.  Dismissed me and said it was anxiety. No tests, nothing, but a $40 prescription.  I followed up with my then family doctor and he told me to quit the pills.  He said they were placebos.  But he didn’t put me on anything different.  Eventually it all subsided for a long while.  I do have flare ups from time to time.  Usually something triggers it.  I just try to cope until it passes.

Have you ever been in an old Catholic church or even a cathedral, think St. Patrick’s in NYC?  There’s a certain smell that these places have.  I think it’s a mixture of the incense from masses and the candles.  Lately, almost every night, for the last few nights I have been smelling the incense.  I don’t know if it is frankincense or myrrh or both.  I haven’t burned incense in ages, so I know it’s not something I have done.  And then this morning, for the briefest of moments, I mean there-gone in an instant, I smelled roses.  I haven’t had a scent of roses like that in ages.  But as soon as I smelled the roses, they were gone. And we have no roses blooming, nor any in the house. As to the incense smell, I do find it a comfort even it is a mystery.  I miss that smell.  Probably the only thing about church that I do miss.  Okay that and the statues and candles, those always fascinated me.

Google told me that frankincense and myrrh can be symbolic of Mary Magdalene.  And of course I know rose is Mother Mary.  Last night I asked Magdalene what it is she is trying to tell me.  I still don’t know.

Instead I had a very odd dream about my late  grandmother, wearing a very revealing black evening gown with a sexy black undergarment.  Think along the lines of Cher in her “Turn Back Time” video.  And she was packing luggage and was extremely animated. The thing that makes it so bizarre is that my grandmother was the most modest person I ever knew.  When she had a yeast infection, she didn’t even want her doctor (who was a male) to look at her. She was the kind of woman that never wore pants or anything “revealing”.  For her to wear a sleeveless dress was a big deal.  In the  dream, she gave me a rather large  suitcase that could be separated into two.  I opened one side of it and there were two very dated dresses, that looked like someone the size of a pencil would wear. The waists were that tiny.  I mentioned to her that two of her old dresses were in there, but she seemed so disinterested.  In some ways, it was almost like I was invisible to her.  Then the scene changed and I was hiding in the wheel well of a moving tank running from the “bad guys” No clue what any of that was about.

Dreams man….
Can’t they be a little more comprehendable?  LOL

Thank you all for reading my blog this month.  And for all your comments.
I hope to continue on with this on a regular basis and not disappear until the next blog along.

Until the next post………………

Someone Check My Pulse!

Am I alive?
Am I breathing?

NO SPOILERS!  I PROMISE!
But if you have seen it, you probably know some of what this
kinda cryptic post is about.

I think I held my breath for the entire hour and twenty minutes!!
That was  intense AF!
I laughed, I cried, and I cheered.

I’m still actually trying to figure out who all survived the battle.
There were two in particular that didn’t that I had really hoped would
make it through to episode four.

Three episodes left.
Makes me really sad.  Such a great show.

This battle was well worth waiting for.  It was probably by far the best
of all the battles.

I have no one here to discuss or watch with.  Totally sucks.
But that’s life for ya.

I really wanted to  write about something, but my brain is still trying to
recover from watching this episode.

Hopefully tomorrow I can come back with a good ending post for the month.

Am I Really An Impostor?

Effy touched on this in her blog post today.  You can read that here.  Some good stuff, I tell ya!!

Impostor syndrome and authenticity, am I either?  Something I struggle with daily.  I always feel like I have no right to  call myself a writer or an artist or a photographer. When someone asks me what I do, the words get stuck in my throat and I glance around for someone to save me from the conversation.  I have no confidence in my voice when I even manage to utter one of those words.  I feel like an impostor or that I am not being authentic because I don’t have much to show for it.

All my life, I’ve been told who/what I wasn’t and who/what I couldn’t be.
Like when I was a kid, I used to say I want to be a doctor or nurse. And my mother would reply, you can’t do that you hate needles, you hate blood.  Needles yes…I mean I was a kid and some grown up coming at me with a sharp object scared the shit out of me.  I can’t really say I was afraid of blood though. Not that I can honestly recall because as a kid I can’t remember seeing any.
Or I’d say I want to be a teacher.  Her response was, you can’t be a teacher, you hate school.  I had a love/hate of it really.  I loved learning history or practicing penmanship.  I was that weird kid that  would ask the teacher if we could work in our penmanship books even after she made us take pages and pages of notes off the blackboard. I didn’t like nuns authoritarian ways. The corporal punishment I saw some of my classmates experience just for not comprehending a topic.

She didn’t want me to go to college. Said I didn’t need to waste time on a piece of paper.  I only got a year in before I ended up moving out of state.  My first three semesters, I was on the Dean’s List.  I was so proud of myself.  The last semester, was just about after I got married and then my Grandma had a mastectomy. So my grades went to shit. I didn’t
re-enroll after that and then we moved.   He wanted me to study something business related because he thought I’d help him run his business.  Free labor.  I couldn’t do the Algebra required with the business courses.  It’s like a foreign language to me.  He promised to help me with it, but when it came down to it he belittled me instead.  Made me feel stupid.  I ended up switching majors to one where I could have been a case worker for young children.  He was pissed!! But I enjoyed my classes and was happier. But when we moved, I couldn’t go back to school as I had no way to get there.

Back in 2005, when I first really tried my hand at writing.  I had some ideas of a story I wanted to write.  The not yet ex tried to appear supportive and bought me a laptop for Christmas that year.  I still don’t know why really, I had a desktop I was using that was fine and it’s not like I went anywhere to take a laptop with me.  Back then, I wrote everything by hand and when I couldn’t write anymore I would then type it up in a document on the PC or later the laptop.  I would edit and add as I went.  It’s a system that works for me.  After a while though, he started criticizing what I was writing even though he knew nothing about it.  Then he progressed to telling me what I should be writing about and how I should be doing it.  He would take jabs at me veiled as jokes like are you getting paid yet, you’re not a writer unless you’re getting paid for it.

A year later, my Grandma died and I couldn’t find the words to write.  I have been struggling to find my writing voice since. And still over the next couple of years he’d still make those stupid “jokes” about am I getting paid yet.

In 2008, I found art or it found me.  The first class I ever invested in was Connie from Dirty Footprints class BIG.  Around that time, I also discovered Tam from Willowing and not long after I found Effy and Suzi Blu and some of the other art journalers out there.  I was fascinated by the idea of art journaling.  I wanted to take the next step after BIG, but couldn’t. I’m still a little bummed about that.

But then the jokes came about art. And some crap about making money.  I had even less space then to create in.  I pinned brown craft paper to the wall and then pinned a sheet of poster paper  on that. That’s how I did BIG.  My laptop still has paint splatters on it as it was directly below my “easel”. I struggled through art journaling on my desk in front of my key board.  I saw so many classes that I wanted to take but couldn’t. He controlled ALL the money.  I’m still surprised he let me take BIG.

If something I did gave me joy but didn’t benefit him in any way, it was mocked.  He would acted supportive at first or in front of others.  ALWAYS in front of others.  But if I wasn’t making money from it, to him it was a waste of time.

So all his snide comments would ring in my head about how I couldn’t be something if I wasn’t making money from it.  It didn’t matter if it brought me any joy or what it did for me.  All the words thrown at me over the years just ring in my head often and sometimes quite loudly.

I feel like a fraud if I call myself a writer or an artist.  I’m not published.  I’ve never even finished a book or story.  I’m not in a gallery. I have nothing worth selling.  I don’t even create consistently.  I feel like an impostor.  How dare I call myself any of these things!

But that’s how my brain works.  I think even if I wrote something that made some money or  even sold a piece of art, I would still feel like an impostor.  I don’t feel like I am  worthy to call myself writer or artist.

Sunny Saturday

It’s a sunny Saturday out there, lots of blue sky too.  The winds are starting to pick up, now it looks like we will max out close to 40 MPH overnight.

Today is my last day of junk eating and drinking.  Tomorrow I crack down on myself and give up the soda and junk food. Again.  I haven’t even started yet and I can already feel the withdrawals and cravings coming lol.

I’ve been sitting with the ideas that have been coming to me.  Seeing how I feel about them, if they are just ideas or something that needs to come to life.  And if do need to come to life, how to go about doing that.

Today I took my camera out for a spin.  Dandelions are everywhere!!  Outside of that, there’s a couple of others things blooming wild but I don’t know what’s wildflower and what’s weed.  Took some photos of what we have planted too.  Glad I took them before the wind started up.  Here’s a few that I took:

I tried to get a picture of some Robins, but they kept playing keep away with me.  And the Red Wing Black Birds didn’t come around until after I went inside. I want a 70-300 lens eventually.  There’s one I’ve looked that that’s about $200.  At some point, I might want a macro or wide angle for night sky photography.  I don’t know how well I can do out here on the property with Milky Way/Star photography, but I’m keen to find out.  I haven’t priced those lenses, but I’m not ready to explore that yet. Not until I am more familiar with my camera and settings.

I like my little Nikon that’s a simple point and shoot that I toss in purse to have on the go. But I’m noticing now that the photos it takes just aren’t as crisp as my Canon. Or maybe my lens on it was just dusty lol.  I don’t know, it gets the job done in the moment and it’s light weight.

I want to devise a sort of camera/purse/backpack type bag.  The camera backpacks I see are too big to use as an everyday purse.  Or a slightly smaller than a messenger bag would do nicely too.  I have a messenger bag, but it feels a bit too awkward to use.  I need to research patterns again to make my own bag and design it how I want.  Or hopefully save myself some trouble and find one at a yard sale this summer.

On another note, I’m about 2000 words shy of  my Camp NaNo goal for this month.  YAHOO!  For a hot minute there, I didn’t think I’d make it.

Bug and her Mama just left.  My that girl is a handful!  She has almost no fear and that scares the shit out of me.  She’s three going on thirty.  She was playing with some worms earlier and thought they were the coolest thing.  Didn’t want to understand that they needed to be in the dirt to live. She wanted to take them home and planned to stick them in her back pack.  I think they all escaped before she had a chance to do that.

I think that’s all I have for today. Might be time for some tea to warm up with. This strong breeze is making me quite chilly.

Friday’s Brain Dump

I’m glad y’all enjoyed my list of books and movies/shows.
I like sharing that sort of stuff.
I’m writing this post while watching Effy’s Wilderhood live.

Symbols!  Ones that I return to again and again are circles, spirals, arrows.  I’m also drawn to feathers, hearts, moon and stars, dragonflies and butterflies. My go to colors are almost always blues and purples.  Black and Silver are colors that I love, too. And I want to paint women with fiery red hair!!  I don’t know why, but I do.

The topic of style. I don’t currently have one.  Once I fully commit to my practice, I’m sure eventually one will emerge.  Honestly though, I don’t know if I want a style.  I like the idea of perhaps being eclectic.  Before I get to any of that though, I need to develop a practice where I meet myself on the page every day or as often as possible until it becomes like breathing.  I’m trying to figure out right now how I can do that with the least amount of resistance.  I can’t just go flinging paint around the living room, it’s not my personal space.  I feel too limited to using just markers.  Oh such is the creator’s dilemma, LOL!

One book I forgot to mention, that I don’t have that I REALLY REALLY want, is Avalon Within by Jhenah Telyndru.  I really want to read this one. Also books on Druid practice. I guess now I should add to that want to read list is books on Mary Magdalene.

I should mention that Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck is on my pile. I’ve picked this one up and put it down a few times now. I attribute that to timing. Maybe? LOL.

I’m primarily reading only fiction right now.  One of reasons I had stopped reading Big Magic and The Art of Asking, is I was guilted into stopping.  That there was no need for me to read “Self-help” books.  So I allowed myself to feel guilty for reading them and stopped  😦

That’s a problem for me.  I allow myself to be too easily manipulated.  I too often allow others to guilt trip me into fitting into their box and doing or stopping something as they bid.  It’s an old conditioning that I am working hard to break out it’s vicious cycle.  All it does is please everyone but me.  I get no joy or satisfaction out of it.

The wind is coming.  Looks like our max gusts this weekend will be about 30 MPH.  I’m not thrilled, but what’s a girl to do.  We’ve had to close the back door and windows because there’s plowing going on in the back field and with the wind the dust and dirt is drifting towards us.  Curious to see what they plant this year.  It’s owned by a couple of guys we’ve been calling “The Onion Guys”.  We don’t know their names, just that they primarily farm onions. A couple years ago, they bought the other 50 acres that was once part of this property. The original owner split the land to sell the back 50 to them and we bought the house with 2.4 acres.  We didn’t need nor want the other part.  Though, if we could have managed it, we could have leased the land.  But this is less complicated and suits us better.  I say us/we, but I just live here I have no part in any of the ownership stuffs.

Italian sausage stuffed tortellini with homemade Alfredo sauce…it’s what’s for dinner. I didn’t make it.  I fail at cheese sauce from scratch lol.  But it was OH SO GOOD!  I’m thinking I want to make Indian Butter Chicken again soon.  I made it once a couple of months ago.  I found a few recipes and used a combination of them to make it.

I think that’s enough brain dump for today.

Thursday’s Tumble Of Thoughts

The thermometer says it is 74 degrees currently and I’m freezing.  I’m sitting here in a sweatshirt and I am ready to grab a damn blanket.  We have the windows open because the sun is shining, but damn I’m cold.

I have several books on my reading pile:
The Artist’s Way –  I have yet to make it passed chapter one.
Women Who Run With The Wolves – Another one where I’m stuck at the end of chapter one.
Big Magic – I’m a few chapters in on this, maybe a quarter of the way.  I think I want to start over and begin again.
The Art of Asking – I got about half way through this one.  It’s really good.  But I got sidetracked and never finished.  Another one I’m thinking I want to start over with.
Dance of the Dissident Daughter –  Been on the pile for awhile now.  One of those I pick up and put down because I’m afraid to read it.

Also started reading but haven’t touched in some time, A Clash of Kings and A Discovery of Witches. Both of which it would do me well to start over.  On my Kindle I’m reading  Dragonfly in Amber. Because Droughtlander! 🙂

Movies and Shows I can repeatedly watch:
Lord of the Rings
Harry Potter
Mists of Avalon
Eat Pray Love
Julie & Julia
Grey’s Anatomy
Criminal Minds
ER
Downton Abbey
I’m sure I could add many more to the list.

The two Marys. They are wanting to be explored.  Maybe even painted at some point.  How can I explore two women who only information available…is written by men. Men who would prefer to keep them from not being elevated.  Men who would see them kept in the dark.  It does not escape me that Mother Mary, who has a much more prominent role in the Catholic church but in other “Christian” beliefs she is barely acknowledge outside of she gave birth to Jesus. Outside the Catholic church she is not to be prayed to or venerated or worshiped.  To do so is considered idolatry.  It’s the same with saints.  Maybe The Accidental Mary Pilgrimage would be a good place to start?

When I  started to think about focusing on or exploring the Sacred, this isn’t what I had in mind.  This isn’t where I thought it might go.  To say I’m apprehensive is an understatement.  Oh the tangled web my thoughts tend to weave.

Random Tidbits Wednesday

The Farmer’s Almanac says that the next few days the PNW is going to have unstable weather.  I think I might be inclined to believe it.  Yesterday was supposed to be a dry day, and out of the blue a rain storm came through.  Some areas got lightening too.  It reminded me of being in the South.

The current ear worm is Let It Be by The Beatles.  But only the first line, “When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me. Speaking words of wisdom, “let it be”.”  As I was Googling to make sure I had it right, I discovered that the Mary he was speaking of was his own mother. He also understood that listeners would think of the Holy Mother.  Which is how I think of the verse.  I don’t feel like I am in a time of trouble, I don’t think.  But that line is currently what is stuck in my head.

This is gonna be one of “THOSE” cycles, I think.  The kind that feels like something is going to claw its way out of my insides.  Where the cramps go down deep into my thighs making them both ache and burn.  Where my feet feel like they are swollen but aren’t and they  feel tingly.  Where my back aches and my head hurts, and nothing can really touch it.   So my body just feels like a massacre going on inside and I just plain ache which makes me cranky. And I have no chocolate or wine. MAYDAY MAYDAY lol! Sometimes being a woman just plain sucks!

Speaking of Mother Mary, let me share a little story.  I’ve always been on the fence about so called miracles. I guess that’s the logical side of my brain, where I believe there just has to be an explanation to things.
Anywho….when my Grandma was 12/13 her parents took her back to Poland with them.  They had bought some land, built a house, had livestock and a garden.  I guess that was their dream, but it was not hers. She didn’t want to go, her sister begged them to let her stay with her in the US. Their mother refused and so she had to go.
My grandmother I guess made the best she could of the situation.  She married the man that built their house and had three children with him. In the midst of this WWII had broken out and my grandfather was summoned to fight.
She was devoted to the Virgin Mary and prayed to her daily and would petition her for many things.  Over the years, it seemed many of her prayers were answered in one way or another, even if  it wasn’t specifically answered how she hoped.
On one particular day in 1944, there was some active fighting going on a few miles from their house.  She was laying on the bed nursing her infant daughter.  Above the bed was a window covered with lace curtains.  She was praying the rosary and praying for protection as she was nursing, when they blew up the bridge nearby the house.  The walls shook and the glass window above them shattered. But instead of them being covered in glass and cut to  ribbons, the glass just slid down the wall. She fully believes that the Blessed Mother protected her and her baby.  That if it weren’t for her prayers, they would have died that day.
She would also tell me that any time there was a scent of roses when none were present, it meant that Mother Mary was present.  I haven’t smelled roses like that in a very long time 😦

Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene have been on my mind for a few months now.  I don’t know what to do with that.  I haven’t been present in the Catholic faith for a long time.  I know in Catholicism, Magdalene is not looked upon to favorably, she’s considered a prostitute by the church/bible.  I think research has proven her to be anything but.  Though you know, they couldn’t let a keen and independent woman of means be seen in a positive light.  I sort of see her as a rebel for some reason.  Maybe that’s one of the things that draws me to her…..that I am not what people think I am or see me as.  And instead of getting to know me, they prejudge and assume the worst.

My spellcheck seems to have disappeared from the tool bar in the editor, so apologies for errors.  I also haven’t been able to figure out how to post to the vodka and rosaries tab on this blog.  Experiencing technical difficulties LOL.  I’m not in the mind to sort either of them out today though.

Have a fabulous Wednesday!

Lost: Patience, Plus A List

Have you seen my patience?  I seemed to have lost them somewhere.  I wish I could remember when I lost it/them.

I have no patience when it comes to small children any more.  Especially ones that can be defiant and show their asses.  How, I ask myself, did I ever raise two of my own?  I can tell you I was a yeller. Talking just didn’t seem to get through, so I would yell. A lot.  I think at some point, I just gave up. Took away privledges instead.

Maybe it’s an aging thing.  I just have a low tolerance for bullshit.  Or maybe it’s just that I’m crampy today and PMS’ing.  I’ll be so glad when I’m done with this part of life!!  I really never wanted it to begin with lol.  The part of being a woman I could certainly do without.

 

Things I want right now:

• A glass or bottle of Sangria, I’m not picky.
• A Hobbit garden
• A Goth garden
• A small vegetable patch with herbs too
• One true friend
• To not have a peanut sensitivity/allergy so I can eat a ton of peanut butter

 

Not the post I had been pondering writing today.  But keeping on top of a three year old kind made my thoughts flee out the nearest exit.  Now I think I’m just going to chill.

 

Monday, Monday

I have that song stuck in my head at the moment.  It was a song I grew up listening to.

In my house my mom played a lot of oldies and a lot of Elvis.  I also grew up listening to Patsy Cline. My dad preferred country music or polkas.  On Saturdays, the radio was tuned to WFUV to listen to the Polka Party. I remember when I was very little, maybe four years old, we were in Massachusetts visiting my aunt.  There was a Polish Picnic over in Riverhead, I think it was.  We all went.  My parents and me, my aunt, cousins.

There was a mother daughter band that was playing that day, Wanda and Stephanie. One of them played the accordian.  My dad took me to watch them play, and some how we got to meet them afterwards. My mother…..was livid.  She was so angry that my dad took me to watch them.  I never understood why.  I think they even autographed an album for us.

I could never understand why she didn’t want me to be alone with my father.  I mean, I know now that he was an alcoholic and all. But one thing I can say is when I was that little, I only remember him look out for me.  A year or two later that wasn’t the case.  I can remember us leaving the house late one night because he was in a rage. I remember her snapping up my blue windbreaker and helping me put on my sneakers in the hallway on the stairs. My sneakers were blue with the white rubber on the toe part. They were labeled left and right and had abc’s and 123’s on them in rainbow lettering.  We walked around the neighborhood for a couple of hours until she was sure he fell asleep.

I don’t know why I’m thinking about this today.  It’s one of my more vivid memories.  Maybe it’s because I am trying to remember other things from when I was a child. Things that if I can bring them to mind, I will write down lest I forget them again.  Good or bad, I don’t like not being able to remember something.

Easter-Ostara

I peopled.
We had good food.
I snuggled the little Grasshopper (new babe in the fam, I call her Grasshopper.)
Had some cherry cream pie.  It’s weird, but good.  But I think I’d like it better without the crust. Then again, I’m not a crust person.  I will very rarely eat pie crust or
even pizza crust.

Happy Easter to those that celebrate it.
Happy Passover to those that celebrate it.
Ostara blessings. (yes I know that was in March)

Coming from a Polish family one of my favorite things was Holy Saturday, which was yesterday.  On that day, my maternal grandmother would make up a fairly large basket. It was lined with a white cloth. In it she placed a ring of kielbasa, salt and pepper that was in a crystal dish, dyed eggs, bread, a lamb shaped butter, I feel like I might be forgetting something. But anyway, it was a basket of food that was then covered with a white lace doily. My mother and I would then take the basket for her to church for the priest to bless it.  I would hope and pray I was in the right spot to get hit with the holy water.  The priest would go up the aisle, dipping the “wand” of sorts into an urn like holder containing the holy water. A flick to the left, a flick to the right, take a few steps up the aisle, rinse and repeat until everyone’s baskets were blessed. They did this like every hour or half hour.

Then come Easter dinner, everyone at my grandmother’s table would partake in the blessed food before we had the meal she prepared.  It is still a tradition followed in many Polish parishes and in Poland. But it’s something I haven’t practiced in a very long time.

Now the house is quiet, except for the TV.  The birds are chirping outside as the sun shines in the back door.  It’s nice to see the sun, it was supposed to be cloudy today.  The winds have settled, for now. Almost couldn’t do the egg hunt outside because it was too  breezy for awhile.  But it settled enough to do it after dinner.  The kids had fun.

Now I think I might just go Netflix and chill as they say.