Hello, Friends!

Dear readers,

It's been so long since we have talked! How was your Lenten season, and Easter? Mine was pretty good. Well, honestly, I think my Lent was pretty milquetoast--I don' t feel that I challenged myself, hardly at all--and what I did ask of myself, I fudged even on that. I felt like a failure from the get-go. But when I read a post about failing at Lent, I thought, "Yep--I get it now"--and this Lent became one of those prolonged moments of attempting to come to terms with my utter inability to do anything good without grace.

In other news, I took a sewing machine class, we sent our dog Hondo for obedience training (I can't believe it!--I've never told you about him, have I?), and we lost another chicken-- one of the two last roosters. We really need to get more hens anyway. And I guess foxes and coyotes have to eat too, but boy is it sickening. On the good side, I discovered up-close-and-personal the beauty of colored eggs, when we got some from a friend. I never knew brown, blue, and green would make me so happy. Also, I rediscovered my bread machine, as I do at some point every year. We made some early St. Joseph's Day bread that turned out so well I almost swore off store-bought for good. The machine is running right now.

I participated in the Catholic Writers Conference Online, which, if it did not electrify me, only did not so because I retain a firmly realistic understanding of my weaknesses and liabilities. These being what they are, the conference managed to get past them and bring new life to my writing subvocation. You should at least indirectly see some of that here soon; and though you may not perceive any difference at this site, I mention it because if you are a Catholic writer or aspiring writer, you really should be there next year. (There's a live conference this August; if you go I will be jealous.)

For Easter I got snookered into going to the Easter vigil this year. I say "snookered" because, as much as I love and long to go to the Easter vigil mass, it was not my idea. I knew it was a long mass, and have you ever taken nine kids (three of them under four years old) to a vigil mass? But everyone behaved beautifully for the hours and the ages; and Jason's mom and my mom, dad, and sister were there to help us, and it was beautiful and joyful and solemn. Not to say it was completely without incident, but hearing the Exultet made up for any such things. It was a "night truly blessed."

The next day we hosted a little Easter get-together with family friends and I made some of these bird nest cookies--a recipe for haystacks, modified for spring--which I saw at someone else's blog. (Was it you, Charlotte?) So cute.

I didn't get a picture until someone started to eat the last one!

So those are not so much highlights as snippets of what I've been up to. The babies get more beautiful every day.

(I'll have to rediscover my camera so I can show you a few more of these sorts of things, won't I?) Hope to hear from you soon!

Love,

Nicole