My father’s cookies, a leftover bunny, and other discoveries (7 Quick Takes)

~1~

Can you go to your parents’ house and come home empty-handed? Me neither. I came home with a bag of my father’s homemade cookies, a copy of the newspaper with our wedding announcement in it, a few wedding photos I had forgotten about, and printouts of our online guestbook. I don’t even recall having an online guestbook.

You never know what my parents will have uncovered in a closet or the basement. The cookies were new, though. And they were good.

~2~

I had gone to my parents’ house to drop off a birthday present for my sister. It really wasn’t much of a gift—pasta and some hand soap—but I asked my sons each to write a note for Aunt Shai. One wrote a note that had him laughing and laughing, and the other sat down and wrote a very simple note that ended with, “Hope to see you soon.”

For some reason, that little phrase made me a little teary. We haven’t spent time with her in more than a year, and I don’t know when we’ll be able to visit normally again. Such a simple phrase…but we all hope to see many of the people we love soon. Hooray for hope.

~3~

If you still have a chocolate bunny in your cabinet from last Easter, do you not need to buy any Easter candy this year? Or did you just buy the wrong kind last year?

These are the questions we wrestle with as we prepare for Holy Week.

I have a feeling the answer involves Cadbury eggs.

~4~

Ten years ago this week we saw our younger son’s photo for the first time. I can’t believe 10 years have passed, and yet it’s impossible to imagine life without him.

Before we received the referral for our older son, people had told me that you can fall in love with a photo. But I didn’t really understand until I saw the photos of our first son—and then our second son.

You really do fall in love with the photo, every feature, every detail. When I look at those first pictures we saw, I still feel a special kind of excitement. We looked at those pictures so many times every day while waiting to meet our children.

When we were matched with our younger son 10 years ago, my 7-year-old niece drew a picture of him. I loved how she captured his face and his sweet little smile.

~5~

A year into the pandemic, I am worse at many things—staying on top of schoolwork and housekeeping come to mind immediately. And I’ve made very little homemade bread. I never even tried working with sourdough. But I do think I’m improving as a hairstylist. My latest round of haircuts might be my best work yet.

I was a little nervous about how we would cut hair through the winter since I like to cut it outside, but we made it through the worst of the winter.

It’s hard to believe it took a pandemic to make me realize I could be cutting hair at home.

~6~

For our meatless Friday dinner, I made a Spanish tortilla.

I need to remember that more often. All you need are eggs, potatoes, and onions, all ingredients that I typically have in the house.

I still can’t figure out how such a simple dish ends up having so much flavor. It must be the onions.

~7~

This afternoon, I learned that my elementary school, St. Pius X, is closing at the end of the school year.

St. Pius was a significant part of my childhood, and it’s surprising to me the memories that come flooding back—seeing Sister Valeria dressed as a clown for the Piusville Fair, filling paper cups with apple juice for Bible Camp, smelling paint and paper mache in the art classroom, serving warm plates of food to people at the Senior Dinners, and just barely making it through terrifying moments in gym class.

I’m always sorry to see a school close because of the impact on children and families. I’m especially sorry to see St. Pius close because that is a really special school community. What a loss.

Find more quick takes on Kelly’s blog, This Ain’t the Lyceum, and have a wonderful weekend!

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