Happy Easter 2014!

Jeff Wunrow, a liturgical artist in St. Louis, made
both my stole and the one we gave as a gift.

Rather than being the highlight of my spring, this year's Easter was almost just one more thing to get through. Dear Husband had generously shared his head cold with me the week before, and I was in the middle of trying to meet the formatting edits required for the formal deposit of my dissertation. It was distribution week at the food pantry, I was giving a research talk at the College of Medicine's annual research symposium, and I had agreed to perform at multiple services (= multiple rehearsals). Oy veh. Although Holy Week was incredibly busy, I am glad I did all those things--even staying up late one night to watch CLUE at the local cinema co-op with some friends. Good Friday I joined a group of students pantomiming the Gospel, and Easter morning I danced in the light of Christ (left). At the last service, two months of ::cough:: plotting came to fruition as we presented our senior pastor with a love offering and a new green stole to replace the old frayed one he's been wearing for Ordinary Time since he started ministry three decades ago. We had managed to keep it a secret from him, so he was well and truly surprised, and we were all immensely pleased with ourselves.

Easter dinner was a smaller affair than usual, with only two guests besides ourselves. I prefer to have a full house on the holidays, but friends at Bible Study consoled me later that the other two seats at the table were for Elijah and Jesus! I cooked what I think was my first ham (surprisingly delicious) and asparagus with white sauce; our guests brought kale salad and twice-baked potatoes. DH had a rehearsal, so after cleaning up, I sent the girls off around the house to hunt for the plastic Easter eggs I had hidden. Same jokes and quotations as last year, but jelly beans instead of chocolates. We had a good laugh reading them around the table. Then we watched Frozen (surprisingly good). It was a happy Easter after all.

Easter table with DH's basket.