Phoning it in This Easter

I'm sitting here at my neighbor's house. My neighbor with the six fabulous kids and she has another on the way. She also homeschools. She is also Catholic. She is also married to a man who travels sometimes. They have had to move and move again and live out of a car traveling from place to place. They have lived the lives of missionaries and are getting to stay put now for a while.

I love my neighbor. She makes me not want to move to the country like we've been planning to do. I love this house right here but I really want to stay here this summer and spend more time with my neighbor and friend.

What does this have to do with Easter?
Like I said, I'm sitting here working on my book edits in a quiet home while her youngest sleeps upstairs. I'm quasi-babysitting and happy to do so. When I came into her home I saw gorgeous Easter dresses for her girls hanging on hangers. She was headed to the store to get fixings for a lovely dinner. Her husband was out doing amazing things like getting Easter baskets blessed and getting special food for their Easter dinner. These people do Easter right as Catholics. They make it an important day and put other things aside.

Photo from waveseafoodkitchen.com

Me? I phone it in, I suppose, but I vow next year will be different.

My excuse this year is that we were traveling for almost 3 weeks and came gliding in to town to hit the 6 p.m. Good Friday Mass after eating sausage spaghetti and having Subway for lunch and bacon for breakfast. So it's Saturday, the day before Easter, and I have nothing for my kids in the way of Easter.

Callie and I the morning we left Oklahoma for home

Traveling family!

You know what I mean. Baskets, clothing for church, eggs to dye, nothing special at all. I might toss on a black and white knit dress with boots tonight. Hardly Easter colors. The kids will wear what they already own. I'll hit the store later and grab what I can. I think dinner tomorrow night is grilled chicken at my Weight Watchersing request.

So help me out here, please! How do you make Easter special? How do you put away worldly concerns like businesses and book editing and homeschool testing coming up and trying to catch up on blogging about your amazing Houston trip and the other 10,000 things you have going on to really focus on this holiday and special day? You don't have to be religious to answer me, you know ... I have friends from all walks of life and love hearing ideas from everyone!

Have a HOPPY Easter, everyone, and try to take some time to focus on the important things! And a big thank  you to my neighbors, who have made me ponder some things since they moved in last August! You are sloooowwwly making me a better person in general!

Here is the blog post from last Easter when we were getting ready to have an egg hunt with our friends! And here is a piece on North Texas Kids about 8 Egg-citing Easter Traditions that I wrote a few years ago.