Happy Easter Everyone. We All have given birth to a Baby Giraffe. Life is Back to Normal

Happy Resurrection Sunday to all my Christian readers.  Happy Easter to everyone else. 

Fresh Flowers (c) 2015
P.Lynne Designs

I normally do not write anything on a Sunday.  Sunday for me is a day of rest, going to church, and being with friends and family.  I am going to be honest about the reason behind writing in this moment. (Grammarly is going to have a field day with that last sentence.  I do not care at the moment, LOL)

Ladies, do you feel like you have just given birth to a 6-foot baby?  I do, and I will tell you why.  In case you have been living under a rock since February, April the giraffe finally had her baby.  It is a boy, and all the world can now say, “Awww, isn’t him cute”.  (Yes Grammarly, I meant to say that.  It is not proper English, but I meant it-It’s called baby talk). 

There have been plenty of, “when is she having that thing?” “I could have given birth to 4 kids by now.”  We were pacing more than Oliver, the father of said baby boy giraffe.  We were giving tips on how April should have her baby, April baby showers (after all, what would you get a giraffe who has everything), and tips on feeding.  

Folks, I have some news that will startle anyone …. wait for it…. still waiting?  It’s going to be good… Still waiting ….

ANIMALS THINK DIFFERENTLY THEN HUMANS!!!!

There I said it.  Think of it this way, you would not want someone to come into your home, be on baby watch, tell you how to have a baby, and then tell you how to take care of it.  Would you?  Animals are on that natural rhythm cycle that only God has given them.  God knew when this baby was to be born.  Yes, it is fascinating to watch.  I was watching myself for a while.  At the times I was watching, April was pacing back and forth.  Was she in pain?  You bet she was, and she said it through body language.  Oliver, the father was pacing back and forth, like human males do when they want to know what is going on with their child.  The difference between a human birth and a giraffe birth is a human female carry the baby for 9 months.  Giraffes, on the other hand, carries their baby for 15 MONTHS!!! Ladies, how would you like to be pregnant for that long?   My tummy hurts as I write this. Those of you who had kids, can you see yourself carrying a baby for that long?  I asked my mom two seconds ago, and all I heard at the other end of the phone were crickets, LOL. I can only imagine the look on her face when I asked that question.  So relax now, Oh wary one, you can go back to normal life as you know it to be.   

Easter Frantic-How not to take a picture and how to make a basket.

I already have it posted on Instagram, but this is what My Easter Saturday looked like….

Easter Saturday with the kids
(c) P.Lynne Designs

I decided about 20 years ago to make Easter baskets for the kids.  I started first with my baby sister and my oldest nephew (who are now 29 and 21), then it went to the niece and nephews from there.  I love doing it, but you will never see this practice in my shop, P. Lynne Designs, at least not yet.  It is worth every penny that I spend, and I love doing it.   I have scaled down the production, but for my sister and nephew, I had candy, something specific to them personally, and a stuffed animal.   This year, for the niece and nephews, no stuffed animal was included, something specific to their personally, a fire truck for the boys, and the girl got a mermaid doll and some candy.  We did not dye eggs this year.  This is the reason why I decided to make Easter baskets:

Have you seen the price of an Easter baskets lately?  No, seriously, you can pay a credit card bill for the month for the amount you pay for this stuff.  This year, everyone’s stuff came from Dollar Tree.  This is not a sponsored post, but man, I could kiss the person behind the “everything’s is $1” concept.  In recent years, I would go to Target and go for it, and I will admit that next year’s baskets will contain part Dollar Tree/part Target items (The Target Dollar spot is really legit).   

·        

Sorry for being a little with this picture...
(c) P.Lynne Designs

Get a basket, any basket (one was a Longaberger basket, one was a baseball fabric basket, and two pail buckets)

·         Go to the party store and get PAPER filler for grass, none of that plastic mess.  

o   Plop at the bottom of the basket. 

·         Fill with candy, a few eggs (make sure you boil and dye first), a couple toys they like (please do not put a whole basketball in there)

o   If they are older (pre-teen, teen, or adult), put something age appropriate for them.

·         Wrapping is optional (this is not a Christmas or birthday present), and let them enjoy. 

The best part is if you are a grandparent or aunt or uncle, you do not have to see them on a sugar high, send them home with parents.  Your job is done.

So, Happy Easter, everyone, you gave birth to a baby RAFFY, and you children are on a chocolate Easter Bunny sugar high.   You survived shopping for new Easter clothes (I will tell you about my bad Easter Dress hunting later), and now you can rest and enjoy your dinner that took only 14 hours to cook, but hey, it is all worth the effort, isn’t it?

Photo of the Day: My desk

(c) 2015 P.Lynne Designs

I do not often talk about my desk.  It has changed over the years starting when I was 12, and I had one of those white Sears desks from the 1970’s.  In fact, I had the full-size bed, and the dresser to match. I wanted a set after seeing my cousin’s bedroom set.  Next, came the rinky-dinky desk, where I had my first computer on, in my room.  It did not last long.  My next desk was to me state of the art for its time.  It was oak stained (no telling what wood was actually used) desk, and it was the first piece of furniture I bought with my own money (actually with the help of my Sears store credit card) for my first apartment.   I loved it, because it had so many places to put stuff, and it really served its purpose when I moved into my current place.  I was able to do both my paper crafting and my computer work there.  In fact, it was the desk that I decided to start blogging at.

In 2013, it was time to say goodbye to that desk.  My father thought it would be a good idea to get me new carpet and paint my walls on the first floor of my condo.  I concurred, because I am not a white wall person, and I had been begging him to get a guy to paint them for me.  Well, that meant that I had to change some things, including getting rid of my much beloved desk.   When it came time to dismantle the computer desk, I wanted to just take each screw out bit by bit, and save the desktop and use it for something else.  It was like marble, although it was made out of wood.  My brother had other ideas, and after he and my nephew took the hutch off the desk part, he took his foot, and smashed it into the hutch, breaking it in two.  Then he took the side of the desk, turn it on its side and smashed it in.  So much for keep a part of it for sentimental value.  We (my parents and I) went to the store and I picked out this desk that was a two-piece, because I was asked to look at them, and pick out what I felt was my style.  When I showed it to my father, I was told that he had a budget, and the one I wanted was too high (how was I to know).  Anyway, I picked the one I am typing at now, and I love it.   The best feature of this desk is I can hide cords.   We all know that the computer, even though the trend is to move away from the cord, has a ton of them.  Cords from the printer, the monitor, and maybe an external drive can be cumbersome to say the least, but it is contained.

So what is on my desk?

(Warning:  May be Affiliate Links ahead)

I am an Independent Longaberger® Home Consultant, as well as a freelance designer of scrapbooks and cards, and a writer, so I have a couple of baskets, the Handy Basket, and a small basket.  In the Handy Basket, I have markers for my Cricut™ Explore, a couple of stencils, some commonly used small tools.   In the small basket, I have a Sharpie™ that should be in the Handy Basket, 4 stamps, and an extra blade for my Fiskars paper cutter. 

I also have an invoice from a recent order, as well as a bill statement and folders on my desk.   As for equipment, I have my computer, a Dell Inspiron 20 All-In-One computer.   It is basically a monitor with stuff inside. (DVD, speaker, and internal drive is built in,).   A big difference from the tower I had for the past 5 years.  Oh, I have an external drive lurking in the back, hooked up, but not working.  It works, but the computer is not and will not read it.  I bought it in 2011, when I had the previous computer.  The back story behind it is when I bought the previous computer, it had Windows Vista built in.  I got sick of the OS (operating system) and upgraded to Windows 7 in 2013.  That is when the computer (Inspiron 1520) stopped reading the external drive, even though the instructions said that the external drive was compatible with Win 7.  When I changed computers in May 2014, I was told that this computer (All-in-one) could read the external drive.  The computer only read it for 30 minutes then quit.  The computer has Win 8 when I bought it, and upgraded to 8.1 a few months later.   I am on the fence of upgrading it to Win 10 when it comes out. 

I always have both phones (smart and home) phones on the desk.   I also have a random ink pad and of course a lamp, which rounds out the items on my desk.

Overall, I have a typical desk.  It suits my purpose, which is to have an efficient, working business.  When I am done for the day, whatever I stop with, I leave it on there.  That is the single life with no kids.   That will change when a little one arrives, and demands her space at my desk.   Then again, I just may have to buy her a desk of her own.  No need to bother mommy’s things.