Stinky Eggs


Yesterday was Easter Sunday and it was truly a glorious day here in our little corner of South Dakota.
Church services on Easter Sunday seem to be just a little more festive and the message is always filled with hope and praise that we serve a Risen Saviour. Our tradition at church is for all the members to bring a breakfast dish to pass and we meet at the church at 8 am for breakfast. Two gals made the best potatoes I have EVER had. I don't usually like potatoes, but these had cheese and sour cream in them and they were great. Soo...when we got home from church I quickly found a recipe for cheesy potatoes and made a batch to have with our Easter dinner. I played my flute during services and it was fun. Sorry Mom, I didn't play Via Del Rosa, I actually didn't think about that until we got home.
Isn't it amazing how God can teach us new things or give us insight into different areas that we have previously studied? Yesterday in Sunday School we were studying about the empty sepulchre and Connie Hanson told me something that I hadn't really heard before...apparently it's Jewish tradition to fold one's napkin after a meal to indicate that they are finished/done. When Peter ran to the tomb and found Jesus' linens, the linen that had covered his face was not thrown down or pushed aside, it was folded neatly, as if telling us that "he was finished" and that "it was done". I find that pretty interesting.
Temperatures were in the 70s which enabled us to have an egg hunt in the yard. Robby, Megan, and Andrew insisted on hiding the eggs so Anabelle and Nathaniel could find them. They had fun.. this brings me to a funny thing that happened, which in turn, brought back a funny Easter memory from my childhood and a few others. Meg had hidden an egg in a small pipe that came out of the side of the house. When Nathaniel went to get it, the egg simply rolled down the pipe under the kitchen area and they couldn't get to the egg. Bob tried to get it with a long stick, but, he too did not have any luck. I just know that some day we will all smell something awful from beneath the kitchen floor and know that it's a spoiled egg. This brought back a fun memory of mine. One year my brother, David...he's the oldest, found an odd colored blue egg and opened it and it reeked! It was the worse smelling thing I have ever the misfortune of smelling. When he showed it to my mom, she realized that the egg wasn't one that had been hidden that morning, it was one that we missed the year before. So, for a full year that egg "matured" into the stink bomb that it became.
When I spoke with Mom yesterday I told her about the egg going down the pipe and she said..."do you remember..." I guess I am not the only one who could not forget that Easter morning. I wonder if Dave has ever told his girls this story.
Easter Sunday also marks the beginning of the end of the school year. I am hoping to be finished by Anabelle's birthday in May. If we aren't done, then we will just keep going til we are finished. As I was thinking about the end of the school year I thought about what it was like for me when I was younger. It's amazing what one can remember when looking back through the years.
I remember so clearly-as if it was just yesterday-walking with my little brother on hot summer afternoons to Miller's Dairy to buy milk. The dairy was on the opposite side of our block. We lived on the SW corner and the dairy was on both the NE and SE half of our block, so the dairy was actually pretty close to our house. Mom would give us $1.75 and we had enough to buy a gallon of milk for 1.47 and two big stick popsicles for each of us for .06 each popsicle. Tax was included. First we would buy one big stick and go watch the dairy men milk cows while we sat on the edge of a big cement wall that overlooked the milking room. We were amazed at the octopus-like contraption that sucked the milk out of the cows. I can remember watching the milk as it made it's way through the clear hoses to the big glass ball before it went into the tank in an adjoining room. After we finished our first popsicle we would go and get the milk and buy another popsicle to enjoy ont eh walk home and still have three cents left over!
I remember Mom taking us to Thrifty Drug on a hot summer night to get a double dip ice cream cone. A single was .05 and an Double was .10... only pigs bought tripples. That same nickle cone would cost 1.50 today. My favorite was the mintNchip or the pineapple sherbet. My allowance was .50 a week and I thought I was the richest girl on the block. Prices sure have changed...A pencil out of a dial machine by the principal's office was a nickle, and a pack of school paper was .25. I remember clothes shopping for the new school year. Mom would allocate 50.00 per child and I would always come home with three new dresses, two pants, three blouses, saddle oxfords, 7 pairs of socks and undies (comesettas included), and a sweater. Living in San Diego meant that we really didn't need heavy coats and I don't remember buying any at the beginning of the school year. I have to say, all these memories were triggered by one small, seemingly insignificant event.....the downward slide of an Easter egg that will more than likely remain in the pipe that leads to nowhere land. Maybe that's where my brain is at any rate so I think the connection is apropriate.

Blessings! Mary