I have an Elizabeth

For the first holiday in four years, I took off my apron. After a long and busy winter, I, like everyone else I know, yearned for spring.

With the Babycakes slate clear I dreamed, plotted and planned. Oh, the creations I could make! If I wasn't icing egg shaped cookies I would be blowing out, painting, dying and deviling the real thing. Yep, a real egg "vase" was going to be at everyone's place for Easter brunch, filled with quince blossoms and violets.

And the menus! Fresh and springy, but oh, If I can still get some oysters I would scallop them as I missed them so at Christmas. Everyone has their own favorite of the breakfast cakes I make, no problem, I won't be Babycaking, I can take three or four coffee cakes in stride!

I abhor the phrase, "been there, done that". But at this very moment it just says it all.

So what have I done with my time? I have ridden my bike, I have painted, taken lovely walks to the water's edge. I have sprinkled pillowcases with lavender water and pressed them, my head in lavender clouds. I have watched everyday as the Magnolias unfold, fed a visiting kitty and offered words of encouragement to my lovely pregnant neighbor then sat in the sun and read.

On the dining room table are boxes of blown eggs decorated over the years, the little wooden bunnies that ALWAYS go on the bureau in the front hall, odd bits of ribbon and annoying remnants of Easter grass dating back to who knows when.

I baked banana bread this morning, not exactly Easterish, but it's going to have to do. Not a cookie, not a cupcake, not a carrot cake this year made by me. But it does not matter, because as I said above, I have an Elizabeth.

Elizabeth has this charming habit. If I say habit, it will continue, right? When Elizabeth comes home with our son, her new husband, she does this little trick. First we visit a minute, and catch up, then I like to give her a little space to settle herself from the trip. So, about the trick, I come back into the kitchen and there, on the marble island is something beautiful and Elizabeth made. We have Easter chicks, made by Elizabeth in her "spare time" that a first year third grade teaching newlywed has none of. And might I add, she is every bit as blond and blue eyed as her chicks, only she is even lovelier.