with an ironclad fist, i wake up and french kiss the morning

I love nonsensical lyrics, and the line from Bon Jovi's 'Bed of Roses' serving as this post's title is one of my all-time favorites. What can it possibly mean?!

Today was a delightful Easter. We had Easter dinner (that means lunch to you coastal heathens) at Uncle Mark and Aunt Kathy's, approximately two hours north of here. Dinner was delicious; I'm always a fan of ham, and they had it in abundance. Following dinner, Aunt Becky forced the 'kids' to hunt Easter eggs, which is something of a tradition - but given that the kids in question are me (age 26), my brother (age 22), my cousin Drew (age 14), and Drew's cousin Bobby (age ~21), you would think that the tradition would have died by now. Of course, Aunt B likes to say that she's 29, so to keep that illusion up, it helps her to maintain the aura that we are younger and smaller than we are.

This year, Aunt Becky apparently felt that she needed to up the ante. I hadn't been to Easter dinner in several years; the last time I hunted eggs, they contained mostly candy and quarters, and were strewn all over the yard. This year, it had snowed this morning, so Aunt Becky constrained her hiding efforts - and the eggs contained various denominations of money, as well as opportunities to win 'fabulous prizes'. At the end of the hunt, I only had four eggs (of the available 21) - but I came away with a two-dollar bill, four dollar coins, and a 'gigantic origami gift set' that will teach me how to make a variety of origami products with the ridiculous quantity of enclosed decorative paper. Obviously the origami set wasn't in an egg - I had a chance to pick a wrapped mystery prize, and that's what I came away with.

I'm also happy to report that communism has finally died out in our Easter egg tradition - the benefit of being older is that we don't have to pool our eggs at the end and split them evenly. I may have came away with fewer goods (Andrew had more money, Michael got more prizes), but I feel that democracy won an important victory today. Yay!

After the Easter egg hunt, we played Guitar Hero for quite some time before heading home. I spent the rest of the evening hanging out with my parents and reading a book. Tomorrow, though, I need to get cracking on my book in earnest. I have now been home for three weeks. I'd like to finish the first draft by the first of May, which means I need to write ~1500 words/day between now and then. We'll see how it goes, but clearly I need to go to bed if I'm going to get up and write tomorrow. Goodnight!