Ugh!

This year, Easter was a bust.  I baked a batch of sugar cookies and shortbread cookies and made a frosting glaze.  I gave half of each to our neighbors next door because they have little girls who had fun helping me make cookies once when I babysat them.  We bought a spiral ham and ate it ourselves.  No kids came.  No grandkids.  Just HH and me.  It felt weird.  Ugh.

We’ve watched more TV than usual, and finding a mystery series that both HH and I love, with all the stations we have, hasn’t been easy.  We both love Longmire, Poirot, and Agatha Raisin.  We watch each of those once a week.  We tried Murdoch, and it was okay.  We tried Father Brown, and I liked it, HH didn’t.  We tried Bosch (all of my friends like it).  We didn’t.  I liked a few others.  HH complained.  So we ended up watching Doc Martin.  We both like it.

I’m telling you, nothing has hooked HH more than The Great British Baking Show.  But we’ve been trying to bake together, and it’s been. . .  interesting.  Somehow, I always end up wearing more flour than I’ve ever worn before, and the results are questionable.  At best.  The last time, I said, “Three cups of flour,” but he only put in two, and the cookies were so soft, we had to add as we went and who knows how much sugar he put in, because they didn’t taste right.  We compensated with frosting.  But I taught the kids to cook and bake, and doggone it, I’m going to teach him too.  Because he wants to do it so much.  Sigh.  He’s a great cook, but he’s sort of slap/dash.  That doesn’t work so well with baking.

He used to read a lot–mostly nonfiction.  But now, if a book doesn’t grab him in the first few pages, he flips over to watching boats go through the Great Lakes on his tablet or watching slot machines in gambling casinos.  When I tell him that a book’s starting slow for me, but I think I’m going to really like it,  he says, “Forget it.  Try something else.”

Have we reached that point?  Where everything has to grab you and hold you by the throat?  Even recipes?  I sure hope not.  I know I don’t feel that way.  I’m willing to invest time in a book that has a slow build because I’m pretty sure it will deliver.  Come to think of it, so do my kids.  So there’s hope.  I’m a slow person, in general.  A slow writer.  A slow reader.  So if a book is slow, I’m okay with it.

Anyway, I hope all of you have had more success than I have lately–with Easter, with TV and reading.  I’m finding happy solutions here and there.  Hope you are, too.  In the meantime, stay safe and stay healthy.  And happy writing.