Easter

Good morning and come on in. I know it has been awhile but had a brain-dead time period - didn't have anything to say, if you can believe that. Now, I am back, rested and full of stuff to talk about.

Speaking of dead brains, I ordered some supplements for us to take last week and when they came I was explaining to Roy what we had. I had several that are supposed to keep us up and moving and one that says brain enhancement. Very seriously, he looked at me and said, "What brain?" I think I responded after sputtering for a few minutes that maybe between the 2 of us we could find a whole one. My co-worker and I used to ask each other to remind us of something we had to do and we would say that maybe between our 2 half-brains put together, we could remember to remind each other. Sometimes it worked and a lot of the time it didn't.

Age has a way of cluttering our brains with lots of facts, fiction and junk which our thought processes have to navigate to find that one little fact we need. It's not that we don't have the information, it's just that we have to search the crowded brain cells to find it. It would be nice if we had delete buttons like a computer so that we could delete the unnecessary but we need to be sure and have a restore function to restore what we deleted and then discovered we needed it.

I love this time of year with the new green leaves, the flowers beginning to bloom, the plowed fields waiting to be planted and new life everywhere. We have planted some of our raised beds and I have more to plant today. This is a new experience for us for we haven't tried this method of gardening before and we will see how it works out. I think it will probably be overcrowded but we will see. I had rather have too much and have to pull some up than not have enough. That was our daddy's philosophy - plant too much and thin out the excess.

Easter is next weekend and when we were growing up it would have been a busy time at our home. Mama would be sewing frantically to make new outfits for the two of us and getting new clothes for the 2 boys. Many times the hems and buttons would added on Saturday night before Easter but they would always be ready and beautiful. She was a wonderful seamstress.

It would not end with the dress, for here in the South in the days of yore, we also had to have white gloves, a hat, and new shoes. The shoes were usually black patent for you can't wear white until after Memorial Day so I usually had black patent Mary Janes for years. After I outgrew those, it still was usually black patent something that we bought at Weatherbees or Liddells department stores there in Camden.

I loved Easter for it not only meant new clothes but dying the Easter eggs, a pretty basket and the Easter egg hunt. Thank goodness we had our own chickens which would lay lots of eggs for with 3 of us, we had to dye about 3 dozen eggs. We would have egg hunts at the church with our Sunday School class, sometimes one at school, and then our family hunt on Easter Sunday. Those poor eggs would be hidden, hunted, found, put back in the refrigerator, and hidden again. Most of the time we would die a fresh batch the Saturday night before Easter and mama would make deviled eggs for dinner and then egg salad, chicken salad and anything else which would use those eggs.

Mama's motto was waste not want not so the eggs would be used somehow for we carefully put them back in the ice box after hiding and hunting them if they didn't have any cracks. It they got cracked, we would shell them, put salt and pepper on them and eat them like candy for we liked boiled eggs. Sometimes the dye would have bled through and they would have colored streaks on the white but that just made them interesting.

Do you remember the Paas egg dyes? It would be a packet of colored tablets, a little wire loop with a handle you would bend up to hold the egg, a wax stick, and sheets of decals. You would boil the eggs, put the tablets in cups, add water and vinegar,and stir until the tablet melted. Then you would carefully place the egg in the little wire thingey or a spoon and slowly lower it into the dye and roll it around until it was dyed. After it was the color you wanted you placed them on clean dish towels to dry so you could wet them and put the little decals on them. If you wanted to be really fancy, you took the wax stick, write your name and a design on them before dyeing and that area would not dye and you had a personalized egg.

It was a big deal for me to make mine pretty and I would dye them 2 colors, put designs on them and then the decals. Sam would just dye his one color and be through but brother Arvin was a different story. After we had dyed ours and made them pretty, he would start pouring the different colors together and making new colors and take my word for it, red and blue and yellow and green mixed together is not a pretty color. Muddy is the best way to describe it but he thought is was hilarious but he always thought life was hilarious and was our sunshine and fun in our lives. Now he was full of devilment as mama would say, but he made life interesting.

By the time we had finished dyeing the eggs we would be red, yellow, blue and green and so would the kitchen table. Time for baths, hair washing, and off to bed so the Easter Bunny could come and bring us chocolate bunnies and yellow peeps. Our baskets would be waiting for us on the kitchen table all dressed up by mama after we were asleep. She and daddy always enjoyed surprising us on special days and I can see the grins on their faces now when our eyes would light up with joy. I miss them and Arvin too, but am so thankful for all the sweet and wonderful memories of growing up in my family - it was a blessing.

Well, I have rambled enough for this morning and ya'll be careful going home and come back to see me. I will share mama's deviled egg recipe with you this week for she made it with homemade mayonnaise and her pickles. Sooo good and easy.

Nuff said,

The Georgia Peach