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Easter

Hey, all! I hope you enjoyed your Easter weekend. We started our Easter celebration a couple weekends ago with our neighborhood egg hunt. This has been a neighborhood tradition for several years now. It's pretty simple to do if you'd ever want to do it in your own neighborhood. Just buy some eggs + candy, have some neighbors help stuff the eggs, and then tag a couple helpers to hide eggs on the day of the hunt. I should mention that having children stuff candy into Easter eggs will likely induce complete chaos.

But the egg hunt is always simple and fun!

Each year, we have between 800-1000 eggs for the neighborhood kids. The kids are the fastest kids on the planet, so the whole hunt only takes 10-15 minutes. We also have bagels and hot coffee for after the egg hunt because it's Wisconsin and the weather is typically cold/wet/rainy on egg hunt day. But we will not be deterred! Egg hunt #2 was at my parents' home over the weekend. We hold 17 children captive in the basement and then release the swarm.

Egg hunt #3 was Easter morning. That Easter bunny is always hiding the girls' baskets in the strangest places but they love the thrill of the hunt!

I usually try to stash some non-candy items with all the other goodies in their basket. This year it was socks, dry erase boards, wind-up butterflies and princess crowns (thank you Target for having inexpensive cool stuff for Easter baskets!). And now Lucy likes to plan out her whole day on her dry erase board. She's now more organized than I am. Egg Hunt #4 was on Sunday afternoon. Once again, terrible weather but weather will never stop the kids from having a good time!

We had lunch and hung out with some of our favorite people on Sunday afternoon. The kids played, the adults drank coffee and caught up on some Jim Gaffigan. You know, Easter type stuff.

And our friend, (bless him), introduced Marielle to some great 1990s potty propaganda in hopes of getting her interested in using the potty. Someday.

I love these people and am thankful for this little life of mine. So very ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. Just like yours.

I hope you had a very happy Easter, too. post signature

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Break Up or Break Down

Natalie Dee

Man...this blog.
My blog & I have been breaking up and getting back together like a bipolar Taylor Swift song this past month. I want to fill you in on my brand of crazy these past few weeks.
I know that every writer/creator goes through this stage and it's not pretty. It starts as a small voice that tells me other people write better and have better stories. I'm certain they start their days with a 5a morning yoga routine and then sit down in front of their computer on a clutter-free work surface within their glistening home and effortlessly write brilliant, witty things that capture the imaginations of all their faithful readers. These creators have the nerve to actually write on a consistent basis. I should just quit and read their stuff.
And then I tell my blog that it's over between us. I want to see other people. And then I bump into someone who asks me what's going on with my blog. "How's your writing coming? I love your stories." And then I tell my blog that maybe we should try to work things out. But my blog is demanding, you know. It's like, "Hey. You have to spend time with me. You have to commit and stop comparing me to everyone else." But I have seen the greener grass elsewhere and it makes me dislike my own grass. My stupid grass needs commitment; it calls me to be vulnerable & brave; it needs me to get over my deeply embedded fear of failure. And I hate it. I'd rather admire someone else's grass than water my own.
So I chose to stay in an in-between space of wanting to keep writing, but feeling choked by my own insecurities.
And then I listened to this TED talk. The premise of the talk is that we're raising our girls to be perfect and we're raising our boys to be brave. The speaker indicates that girls will try, maybe even come close, but if she can't get it perfect, she would rather show nothing at all. Perfection or bust. It was a significant moment for me. I want to be brave, not perfect. I want my girls to be brave and be comfortable with their own imperfection--to try even if it's difficult. How can I ask them to be brave if I can't do the same? Stupid TED talks. Stay away from them, people. They are dangerous and may make you do all kinds of idiotic things.
I wish I could say that after my "TED talk moment" I sat down and wrote something inspiring and brilliant. I didn't. I kept leading my blog on, promising it that I would commit but that it just had to give me a little more time. I still had other grass to check out.
I hung out with a group of ladies this weekend and one of them asked me about my blog. I sighed deeply. I told her that I was ready to commit to it. I'm going to water my own grass. She asked me how people generate income by writing blogs, or how they get their writing out there into the big wide world. I don't know the answer to either question, but I do know that I can't shake this dumb blog.
After all, it's my dumb blog. Written imperfectly... and bravely.

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