So today was Easter. It's a ton of fun, but I can't really describe it that well. Family traditions are special that way. So starting with yesterday: we always dye our eggs the night before. My brother moved out years ago, and doesn't bother to come over a day early to do the job, so nowadays, his eggs are dyed for him by my sisters.
To separate his eggs from mine, they have as of the last few years developed cues to clue him in. In this year, his eggs all except one had an arrow on them. Each arrow pointed to the next egg. He, of course, had suggested we dye his eggs white...so the last egg had, dyed on it, spelled out, "white".
My eggs actually had a break from tradition this year. Normally, I go two each of blue, orange, and green, my signature colors which at a time were my first, second, and third favorite colors. This year, there was no orange. So, I decided to go for red instead. The reds didn't quite get as well done as I'd have liked, but oh well.
My greens both got slightly damaged, and my blues turned out...interesting. One was a nice blue, the second one. The first one I mistakenly had placed in pink (thinking it was orange), and when I realized my error, swapped it to the blue. This ended up creating a REALLY beautiful, ethereal-night-sky-like egg as a result.
My sisters did their normal fancy designs, using different techniques. The traditional methodical-duct-tape and also experimenting with wax and scraping off and other such tricks.
This, the night before. Then, come today, my brother arrived at 11, and that's when I was woken up. The eggs were already hidden by my sisters at this point (my older sister does my younger sister and me, my younger sister does my older sister and my brother; they try to be as evil as possible to each other and each progressive year seem to think more and more alike), but since my brother was arriving with some of our candy, our easter baskets could not be hidden until he arrived.
That took a little over half an hour, with us beginning the hunt at about 11:45.
It took us 3 hours and 42 minutes to finish the hunt. (And another 30 or so seconds to stop our timer, which was counting up, acting as a makeshift stopwatch to record the time.) We usually set some ground rules. Certain areas are off-limits, but we have what is basically "the loop": the hallway of our house connects to the bathroom which connects to the laundry room which connects to the pantry which connects to the kitchen which connects to the dining room which connects to the living room which contains the entrance to our house and also connects to the hallway.
For eggs, I usually request a "below the neck, above the knees" rule, but only half of my eggs actually followed that rule this year. A very common strategy of us is to shadow someone likely to find our eggs for us when they're searching for their own, a tactic which is most effective, but has its limits. My sisters both hid eggs for me and my brother in the wreath (an old Christmas decoration that never got taken down), and also hid our baskets in the EXACT same spot.
While there was only one dummy egg this year (in the refrigerator), my older sister placed four false baskets containing items: a jar of chocolate with an egg ("chocolate eggs"), a peanut butter can (tub? jar? not sure what you call the typical container of it) with a cup ("peanut butter cup"), a jar of chocolate with some text (forget what it said) (post-writing edit: it said 'bunny', as in, "chocolate bunny", obviously), and a jar of jelly with text saying 'beans' (Jellybeans). One of my younger sister's eggs (the second-to-last she found in fact) was hidden inside of the egg in that false basket. (Did I mention they try to be as evil as possible to each other? Yeah, that's no joke.)
The last egg of hers was actually MY suggestion, surprisingly enough: one of our salt shakers is JUST big enough to hide an egg, and because we always wrap eggs in paper towels, it was white in an object that's supposed to look white, so it took her a while to finish. (She was the second-to-last to finish.) My older sister's last egg was taped to the top of the inside of the laundry machine. Another egg was inside of the stove. (Evil! No joke, evil!)
My last egg was ironically positioned in the EXACT same spot as an egg from last year, being near our movies and taped to the underside of one of our kitchen's counters. (The one we have filled with all our plastic/paper silverware/plates and bowls.) It's a nice hunt, challenging but I think this year not frustrating.
That might have been due to exhaustion, though: my feet got tired, so I sat down a lot, and when other people also got tired, it led to many people sitting around, doing nothing, waiting, because they were too tired. But it was neither too hard nor too easy, though as per the norm, as the hunt got longer, hints came up more frequently.
If you're wondering, yes, all those hiding places are written down. We learned we needed to do that years ago when SOMEONE couldn't remember the last egg's hiding place. I don't know what my younger sister does, but my older sister writes her notes on locations in Elvish, which she is, of course, the only member of the family fluent in. (She's a linguist. As in, literally graduated college with a degree in Classics, that being Latin and Greek, with a minor in Finnish, who is learning Japanese in her spare time for FUN. Of course she knows the various different forms of Elvish. And all other Middle Earth languages for that matter.)
Anyway, after the hunt, it was too soon for supper, so we watched The Lone Ranger, at my suggestion. Was a good film, I had no problem with it, but that MIGHT just be my lack of knowledge (except the vaguest of vague details) about the whole franchise. (I'm pretty sure it started on the radio and had a TV show, and is sometimes tied in with Green Hornet especially in fanon, but that's about all I really know.)
Then, I got to spend the rest of my day in a ComicFury hangout, largely watching a friend play games, which they screenshared so I could see. Spent the majority of the hangout muted since family night was still technically going at that point, but once both my younger sister and brother had left, I decided to unmute it. Still largely used the old version's chat (really, whose stupid decision was it to remove the chat from the new version?) because I don't speak up so well, but it was nice all the same.
Fairly good day.
There's SO much I feel like I'm not describing in the day, so many things lost to time, little traditions and quirks not found anywhere else, but not much I can really do beyond what I already have.
Anyway, this is my entry for tonight.
If I want to get a March update for my blog, I need to do so tomorrow.
It'll probably be unbearably slow, though, since my computer is slow and my internet's even slower. (A reboot may or may not help, I honestly don't know. Sometimes it does, sometimes it makes it worse by forcing me to reload everything.)
I'll manage, though. Always do!
To separate his eggs from mine, they have as of the last few years developed cues to clue him in. In this year, his eggs all except one had an arrow on them. Each arrow pointed to the next egg. He, of course, had suggested we dye his eggs white...so the last egg had, dyed on it, spelled out, "white".
My eggs actually had a break from tradition this year. Normally, I go two each of blue, orange, and green, my signature colors which at a time were my first, second, and third favorite colors. This year, there was no orange. So, I decided to go for red instead. The reds didn't quite get as well done as I'd have liked, but oh well.
My greens both got slightly damaged, and my blues turned out...interesting. One was a nice blue, the second one. The first one I mistakenly had placed in pink (thinking it was orange), and when I realized my error, swapped it to the blue. This ended up creating a REALLY beautiful, ethereal-night-sky-like egg as a result.
My sisters did their normal fancy designs, using different techniques. The traditional methodical-duct-tape and also experimenting with wax and scraping off and other such tricks.
This, the night before. Then, come today, my brother arrived at 11, and that's when I was woken up. The eggs were already hidden by my sisters at this point (my older sister does my younger sister and me, my younger sister does my older sister and my brother; they try to be as evil as possible to each other and each progressive year seem to think more and more alike), but since my brother was arriving with some of our candy, our easter baskets could not be hidden until he arrived.
That took a little over half an hour, with us beginning the hunt at about 11:45.
It took us 3 hours and 42 minutes to finish the hunt. (And another 30 or so seconds to stop our timer, which was counting up, acting as a makeshift stopwatch to record the time.) We usually set some ground rules. Certain areas are off-limits, but we have what is basically "the loop": the hallway of our house connects to the bathroom which connects to the laundry room which connects to the pantry which connects to the kitchen which connects to the dining room which connects to the living room which contains the entrance to our house and also connects to the hallway.
For eggs, I usually request a "below the neck, above the knees" rule, but only half of my eggs actually followed that rule this year. A very common strategy of us is to shadow someone likely to find our eggs for us when they're searching for their own, a tactic which is most effective, but has its limits. My sisters both hid eggs for me and my brother in the wreath (an old Christmas decoration that never got taken down), and also hid our baskets in the EXACT same spot.
While there was only one dummy egg this year (in the refrigerator), my older sister placed four false baskets containing items: a jar of chocolate with an egg ("chocolate eggs"), a peanut butter can (tub? jar? not sure what you call the typical container of it) with a cup ("peanut butter cup"), a jar of chocolate with some text (forget what it said) (post-writing edit: it said 'bunny', as in, "chocolate bunny", obviously), and a jar of jelly with text saying 'beans' (Jellybeans). One of my younger sister's eggs (the second-to-last she found in fact) was hidden inside of the egg in that false basket. (Did I mention they try to be as evil as possible to each other? Yeah, that's no joke.)
The last egg of hers was actually MY suggestion, surprisingly enough: one of our salt shakers is JUST big enough to hide an egg, and because we always wrap eggs in paper towels, it was white in an object that's supposed to look white, so it took her a while to finish. (She was the second-to-last to finish.) My older sister's last egg was taped to the top of the inside of the laundry machine. Another egg was inside of the stove. (Evil! No joke, evil!)
My last egg was ironically positioned in the EXACT same spot as an egg from last year, being near our movies and taped to the underside of one of our kitchen's counters. (The one we have filled with all our plastic/paper silverware/plates and bowls.) It's a nice hunt, challenging but I think this year not frustrating.
That might have been due to exhaustion, though: my feet got tired, so I sat down a lot, and when other people also got tired, it led to many people sitting around, doing nothing, waiting, because they were too tired. But it was neither too hard nor too easy, though as per the norm, as the hunt got longer, hints came up more frequently.
If you're wondering, yes, all those hiding places are written down. We learned we needed to do that years ago when SOMEONE couldn't remember the last egg's hiding place. I don't know what my younger sister does, but my older sister writes her notes on locations in Elvish, which she is, of course, the only member of the family fluent in. (She's a linguist. As in, literally graduated college with a degree in Classics, that being Latin and Greek, with a minor in Finnish, who is learning Japanese in her spare time for FUN. Of course she knows the various different forms of Elvish. And all other Middle Earth languages for that matter.)
Anyway, after the hunt, it was too soon for supper, so we watched The Lone Ranger, at my suggestion. Was a good film, I had no problem with it, but that MIGHT just be my lack of knowledge (except the vaguest of vague details) about the whole franchise. (I'm pretty sure it started on the radio and had a TV show, and is sometimes tied in with Green Hornet especially in fanon, but that's about all I really know.)
Then, I got to spend the rest of my day in a ComicFury hangout, largely watching a friend play games, which they screenshared so I could see. Spent the majority of the hangout muted since family night was still technically going at that point, but once both my younger sister and brother had left, I decided to unmute it. Still largely used the old version's chat (really, whose stupid decision was it to remove the chat from the new version?) because I don't speak up so well, but it was nice all the same.
Fairly good day.
There's SO much I feel like I'm not describing in the day, so many things lost to time, little traditions and quirks not found anywhere else, but not much I can really do beyond what I already have.
Anyway, this is my entry for tonight.
If I want to get a March update for my blog, I need to do so tomorrow.
It'll probably be unbearably slow, though, since my computer is slow and my internet's even slower. (A reboot may or may not help, I honestly don't know. Sometimes it does, sometimes it makes it worse by forcing me to reload everything.)
I'll manage, though. Always do!
RSS Feed
