Easter (eggs etc)

So this is my entry... a reference to the first female suicide bomber. And my submission wasn't complete until we actually blew it up. It was an interactive exhibit, so we took it outside and lit the "bombs". Not easy.

This was the end result.

Then we celebrated... we went to a bar and saw the local band. They kindly invited me up on stage to play the tambourine. Dreama and I (Laura's good friend) are part of the Tamborine Ho club. My brother in law took some pictures. I wish he would send them as then you can see the group of us. Whenever I or Dreama took the stage the whole crowd of us (all the family that was over 21 plus a few friends) overtook the dance floor and pretty much took over the bar. The band took our email addresses. We are a fun crowd. Yeah!

Easter Egg Contest 2009: The Contestants

This one with the carrots on the plate was not a
contestant. It was my sister Jenny's tray of deviled
eggs that included a very cute one in the center in
honor of the occasion.

Easter Egg Update 2009: The Winners

Jim, Laura's husband won third prize. The Obama Mug. They were in the dollar discount bin at the local grocery store.

My nephew, Tommy won 2nd place and a can of carmel corn. He is going to school at a university in southern Illinois. Regardless of whether he likes it or not it will be consumed.

Brian (Shannon's friend) was the winner of the Malley chocolate Easter Rabbit. Malley's candy is a very old chocolatier in Cleveland, Ohio. A place with a lot of history for my family. We were all concerned as to whether he would share his trophy.

So thats what that is...

Our group had happy hour get together at a neighborhood bar after work a few nights ago. My coworker asked me how it was going. I've always been pretty up front with everybody at work, and it is a bull pen, and sometimes I do take personal calls at my desk.

I spent twenty years in a pretty conventional domestic situation, with a husband, kids, pets, and a station wagon. (I still have the station wagon, which I plan to drive into the ground mostly because I can't afford to do anything else!)


So to give my coworker an idea of what was happening, I told him what my kitchen looked like at the moment. That is, my kitchen no longer looks like a kitchen. I took a sculpture class in February. After that I pulled out all the projects that I have had laying around unfinished for the last five or six years, all mosaics, because that has been one of my interests since Harry was young.


The kitchen table is covered in newspaper, with tile clippers and trowels and buckets in piles and stacks on top of that. I have my next projects in a corner with books open and scattered on the floor, in front of the counter and the sliding glass doors, waiting for the ideas that are still being formulated. There are dirty rags on the counter, and gloves for grouting in the sink, and this is the way the kitchen has looked now since February. The rest of the place is starting to look that personal too.


My friend laughed. He said "Hey, that reminds me of what I went through just after my divorce, but for me it was cars. There were car parts everywhere on newspaper all over my house!" Ah, so that's what it is. It made me feel good knowing that this was a perfectly natural condition.

Summer '08

I turned 50 last July. It really wasn't so bad. My sisters planned a surprise. The tradition started with Jennifer three years ago. Laura will be next year and we'll do Ann (first person on the left) as well, but Ann lives in Memphis. She has so much to say about it.

I had to go to Chicago to celebrate. The surprise was the people that my sisters invited, like Ann! Wow. She was our neighbor growing up. She was Laura's best friend and like a sister to us (she was the fourth sister), and has been a part of our family forever. Wafa, the girl next to Ann in green, came with her husband and kids from Michigan. She buddied around with us Saturday while her hubbie hung with the kids. They have some family here too. We had a great time. Spent the day bike riding around Chicago on rented bikes. We stayed at an old hotel in Chicago and went out to eat and all that and the next morning Cathy and Abu joined us for breakfast. I used to live with Cathy in Oakpark...and then in Elmhurst. It is always nice to see Cathy and Abu.

I spent the rest of the weekend with my sisters and Ann, who had a lot of advise for me on how I should handle the future and my suddenly single status. And my mother, who always gives me great advice, never hesitates to tell me, "Oh Anne you are going to have so much fun!" I love it. How can I lose?

Nothing is sacred....

This is a snapshot from last October of my sisters and their husbands. My older sister Jennifer (the one in the white low cut T and black leather coat) is the Harley Babe. Her husband is the one with the dew rag and NO SUNGLASSES. My other sister and her husband just like to dress up and party. As with all white people, they love theme parties, so "motorcycle theme" was the perfect foil. I like this picture. This is how I think of them, just change the outfits and the backdrop.

My brother in law Jim, Laura's husband, tried to get Laura interested in motorcycles one year by buying her one for her birthday. She ran it into a bush on her first ride, and didn't talk to Jim for three days. Jim should have gotten her perfume, which she would have liked much better. She eventually sold it and bought a lot of really expensive skin care products.

Since this is my first post in about a year I have a lot of catching up to do.

This weekend I am going to go to Chicago with my son. It is the annual Easter Egg contest. Harry and I are discussing our ideas, but we cannot tell anyone (I had second thoughts about telling him..there was a BIG moment of awkward silence when he asked me what I was doing) because this is a highly competitive contest and we do not reveal our ideas in case someone else in the family feels compelled to cheat. We are not a family of cheaters, but we are ruthless when it comes to winning games, and age has no limits.