Easter Gifts!

Easter didn't go unnoticed at the Bass household this year! Imagine my surprise when the Easter Bunny (for the first time in the 5 years since I've known my husband) left me a goody-filled Easter Basket this year. It was even more of a surprise because I didn't find it "hiding" in my craft room/studio until late afternoon. Apparently the Easter Bunny thought that was the most logical place to leave my treats, even though I usually don't go in there until night-time (when I create best). Oh well! I'm just happy he showed up at all!

The second great surprise Easter treat came much later in the day. At about twilight, the door bell rang. While fighting down the oh-so-eager Chance (a.k.a. Chanuisance), I managed to open the door a crack. Would you believe it? We had our first-ever Easter caroler?! I know, I know. One usually thinks of carolers at Christmastime. But, Easter is all about Christ, like Christmas, so it only makes sense, right? Why didn't anyone ever think of that before? Brilliant!

Actually, it was a friend's little girl sporting a bunny-ear headband, singing "Hoppy Easter to you. Hoppy Easter to you..." You get the drift. She was cute, though!

Lori Tolbert is my Visiting Teacher from the Relief Society organization at church. Don't know what that is? See my earlier post about the Relief Society. In the women's organization, they match everyone up with a partner or what we refer to as a "companion". Each companionship is assigned a handful of 2 or 3 other women from the organization to visit at least once a month. Everyone is paired up with a partner, and everyone gets assigned to have someone visit her. That way everyone has at least 2 other someones in the group to look out for her! This is known as Visiting Teaching, because you "visit" the gals you are assigned to and after lots of chatting and catching up, you usually leave a spiritual thought or scripture "teaching". Usually your visiting teachers (those who visit you) and/or your visiting teachees(those you and your companion visit) become some of your best friends simply because you're so invested in one another's lives and well-being.

So, Lori's daughter, Ariana, came to our door and sang us this cute "Easter carol" (while our ever-loving pooch, Chance, kept barking and clawing to get out!) Then she gave us the sweetest gift Lori had made for us!



I love this simple, but elegant Easter expression! How clever is Lori?!



What a great gift idea...something both calorie-free AND reusable each Easter season! I just love how she spent such time making these adorable stuffed fabric eggs! A few scraps of fabric...who knew?!



Lori, herself, is just a pretty amazing gal. I'm always so impressed with how gracefully she balances marriage, motherhood of 3 little ones, AND still manages to come up with the cutest and craftiest things! Even though she and I haven't been able to schedule a time to sit down and "visit" much lately, that sweet treat sure made me feel loved!

St. Patrick's Day

I always dress up Chance for each holiday! We don't have children to torture, so Chance gets the brunt of it, poor thing!

St. Patrick's Day was Tuesday 17, March this year. You know what that means. Everyone felt that was free license to party from Friday 13 through Tuesday. I'm sure there was plenty o' green beer flowing throughout the country. But, as you know, I don't drink, so I had to find other ways to celebrate the Irish!

Which got me thinking. What exactly is St. Patrick's Day all about anyway? All many of us know is that it's another "holiday" that has been commercialized into trivial trinket-buying and another opportunity to "eat, drink, and be merry." I decided to actually learn a little bit more about St. Patrick's day and its origins and meaning. After reading multiple articles on Wikipedia.com, here is a very brief synopsis:

St. Patrick was a boy, who at 16 was captured in his homeland of Wales and taken as a slave to Ireland, where he remained in captivity for 6 years. Later, after returning to his family, he had a self-proclaimed vision, which inspired his return to the people of Ireland as a Christian missionary. The remainder of his life appears to have been in evangelic service to the Irish, concluding with his death, which most believe to have been March 17, 460 A.D. Ergo, the date of St. Patrick's day we now celebrate. "Legend also credits Patrick with teaching the Irish about the concept of the Trinity by showing people the shamrock, a 3-leaved clover, using it to highlight the Christian belief of 'three divine persons in the one God'..." Modern day celebrations include wearing green which most likely "...gained its prominence through the phrase 'the wearing of the green' meaning to wear a shamrock on one's clothing." Many US cities, as well as those throughout the world, participate in multi-day celebrations and parades. Increasingly more employ green dyes or other measures to demonstrate their respect for St. Patrick and his example of Christianity and missionary work. Chicago, Illinois is famous for dyeing their river green and even the White House's fountain water was dyed green this year to commemorate the occassion.





Still, the question remains unanswered, "Why do we pinch someone if not wearing green on St. Patrick's Day?" Though no one has an official answer, it is generally believed that it's to remind the offender (not wearing green) to honor the Emerald Isle (moniker for Ireland). (Pictures and info courtesy of Wikipedia.com.)

There you go. Now I understand what St. Patrick's Day is about and I can really get behind a holiday that celebrates Christian service!

This year I was lucky enough to hang with friends at Lochran's Pub in downtown Frisco for a large part of the afternoon on Saturday the 14th. The chips (fried potatoes) were great and the entertainment festive! They had different bands come and play both traditional folk and more modern Irish rock music. Additionally, there was a group of Irish dancers who performed many different Irish dances (think Riverdance with Michael Flatley.) Two of the performers (a little boy and girl) couldn't have been over 6 years old, and were cute as buttons! Still, they did much better dancing than I could ever attempt to do! Most of all, though, I just enjoyed hanging with my true-Irish-blood friend, Kathy, and her awesome mom, Mary! What a riot those two are! Great fun!

Here's a picture I made Lloyd take wearing Chance's hat. I told him I wasn't going to put it on my blog. Ha Ha! Sucker! This will be a test to see if he actually reads my blog! The laugh's on you, buddy!