Easter

Our first Easter went well. The bells did ok for the most part. It was a good thing the two pieces we tended to fall apart on were done before the service so hopefully no one was listening anyway. I got home around one and had time to eat lunch, start laundry, and clean up a little before it was time to put the ham in the oven. I was keeping everything simple. I didn’t do anything fancy. I just covered the ham with foil and stuck it in the oven for four hours. I took it out half an hour before it was done and put a honey-mustard glaze over it. That’s it. It turned out just fine.



I also made some “Green Goddess” dip ripped off from the Melting Pot to dip some veggies in.



I used up our remaining boxes of Stove Top from Thanksgiving, baked off some Crusty French rolls,



and called it a day.

Sarah made an awesome cake for dessert



and Katie brought a potato dish (with bacon!) I thought about throwing some beans in the microwave but didn’t end up doing that. It worked out fine. Everyone had enough to eat and we’ve got plenty of leftovers even after sending half the ham home with Sarah. I guess that’s how it’s supposed to work. We ate, cleaned up, had dessert, and spent some time socializing and everyone was out of the house by a little after 7. We are efficient. I’ve still got some dishes in the sink to take care of but that should be a quick task for tonight.

Since there’s no bell practice tonight we’re going to go back up to Menards to possibly complete our window shopping. Measurements were taken last night before dinner so we should be ready to price things out and make a decision. We also hope to get a new faucet for the kitchen. The one we have is not only leaky, but the handles turn the wrong direction. We plan to get a single handle model so I can just use my arm to bump it on rather than having to use my hands. Fun, fun.

In addition to all the Easter stuff and all the normal weekend shopping stuff we also made a trip to Simon’s for the first time in quite a while. Our regular grocery list was pretty short so we figured we’d have some money leftover for some cheese. We also watched a few movies. I think I forgot to mention the one we rented during the week – Sydney White. This was totally my idea as I think Amanda Bynes is wonderful. It had plenty of funny moments while updating the classic fairy tale and is pretty much in line with the movies she’s been doing lately. It’s a classic revenge of the nerds plot. As a nerd, I can appreciate that.

The second movie was another from the Oscar list – Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Not having seen the first Elizabeth didn’t seem to affect the viewing of this film. It covers the time of conflict between Spain and England leading to and including the Spanish Armada debacle. There are a few subplots: Mary Stewart’s plotting and eventual death, Sir Raleigh’s adventures Elizabeth’s attraction to him, Bess’ betrayal, etc. Since this is historically based the ending wasn’t really suspenseful. It’s not like Spain would all of the sudden end up winning. Generally interesting to watch, I was distracting by two main things. First, what is up with the hair? Seriously, it was bad. There were a few wigs that looked like they’d wrapped a Frisbee in hair and strapped it to her head. Secondly, the director/cinematographer seemed to have some obsession with shooting through blurry windows or small cracks that got really annoying. I suppose this has some artistic value but it just bugged me.

The third movie was yet another Oscar list film! I’m on a roll - nine down so far. This one was American Gangster. As seems to be a trend with this years’ movies, this is also based on actual events. It’s the story of Frank Lucas, a black druglord in New York City in the late 60’s. He uses his large family and connections to smuggle in heroin from Bangkok through military vehicles coming from the Vietnam War. Richie Roberts is a detective who is assigned to the Drug Enforcement Agency to try and catch the big drug suppliers at the beginning of the “War on Drugs.” As expected the paths of the two men cross. Considering the title of the movie has the word “gangster” in it, there was a lot less violence and blood and guts than I’d expected. This movie is long and almost 2 ½ hours, but I guess it wasn’t torture to watch it.