Easter At Our House--Marshmallow Peeps and Pepto Bismal

The Christian world celebrated the resurrection of our Lord this past Sunday. Unfortunately, I was not one of them. I spent the entire day on the couch with a stomach bug.

My family's Easter dinner consisted of glazed ham, potatoes with cheddar and sour cream, Caesar salad and Hawaiian sweet rolls. Mine consisted of saltines, jello and ginger ale.

I tend to be very much a type A personality and have a hard time sitting still, especially when there are holidays involved. My husbands swears that the best way to torture me would be to tie me to a chair for awhile. To me, there is nothing more depressing than working so hard planning and preparing for a holiday and then being forced to watch from the sidelines. All the baking, spring cleaning, shopping and choir practices seemed to be for nothing.

But as I watched my family, I realized this was not the case. The kids loved all the thought I put into their Easter baskets, which as any parent of a teen and pre-teen knows can be a real challenge when you try to avoid a lot of candy. My husband enjoyed the Easter dinner I planned even though he had to make most of it.

I also think that God knows what he is doing at times when he forces us to slow down. I had been cleaning frantically because we were anticipating that my brother and his wife would spend the weekend with us. We found out Tuesday before Easter that they were unable to make it. Had they come, I would have been too sick to enjoy their visit.

Being forced to sit in one place also allowed me to catch up on several days' worth of newspapers, organize the family calendar, finally sew the new boy scout troop numbers on my son's uniform and just simply look outside at the beautiful sunshine and mentally plan my gardens. All things I did not have time to get to because I was just too busy.

I also spent a lot of time with my husband and children just coming in to sit and chat for a few minutes, the dog bringing me toy to throw, and a cat or two curling up with me as I read.

So perhaps a sick day isn't so much of an inconvenience as a time to remember what is really important in life: slowing down enough to enjoy it. Hopefully, it won't take another sick day before I stop and smell jelly beans.