Sorry, I don't know how to say that in English and inspire the same feeling. That's the difference between one's second language and third language, I guess.

Anyway, I've started the Easter baking today. Huge piles of Nutella bunnies and coconut lambs got baked, and I've made the dough for the chocolate chip and tahini cookies. That one needs to be refrigerated overnight, but if the baked cookies are anything like the raw dough they'll be delicious. (Yes, I like raw dough. Yes, I'm strange.)

Tomorrow the bunnies and lambs will be decorated with dark and white chocolate icing, respectively, and the lambs will get a coconut coating. The tahini cookies will be backed and boxed, after they have cooled. My friend Elise is coming on Monday (unless family life interferes - with an ailing father and five grandkids there are no guarantees), so she can take home her share right away.

We also had laundry day, and I baked up the apple and cinnamon rolls I had bought at Lidl on Thursday. And that was, basically, our day.

Here we go (click to enlarge):



As I mentioned before, they're made of large pom-poms and some felt rests; save for the googly eyes which I bought in the craft shop. The baskets are also hand-made by yours truly, woven of narrow paper strips. They've gone out of shape a bit during all those months of waiting on a shelf for their moment, but, well, they're still pretty. Or at least I think they are.

Still in the crafty corner, I worked a bit on my third felt mini-kitty. This one is a boy and his facial expression is shockingly similar to that of a 5-year-old I happen to know. Not intentionally; it's just how he turned out. *g*

Speaking of plushies, my politically incorrect, slightly garish elephant went to his new home yesterday. My young cousin called in the morning to tell me that his 4-year-old son loved it. It's fortunate that small children know nothing about political correctness. His big sis (all 7 years old) got one of the Bolshie rabbits and loved it, too. Have I corrupted those kids somehow?

In other news, I did the big grocery shopping today and rearranged my book cabinet to make room for future jams, since this flat came without a pantry. I'd like to have a few choice words with the architect who designed these flats...
Alas, the pear jam turned out a bit runny; we might eat it ourselves and I'll make a new batch for the fair. In the not too distant future I'll have to make a tour to the second-hand bookshop to get rid of a lot of Star Trek novels and other stuff I'm unlikely to touch for the rest of my life.

Then we ate leftovers, watched some telly and I had a phone chat with my friend Elise concerning the Easter baking. She's one of my very few remaining customers; I eliminated the others because I no longer feel up to the challenge to deliver cookies to 12-17 different families. Four or five are still doable, so I kept the ones who appreciated it most. Is that selfish?

Also, it rained today rather copiously, so I couldn't take Mum out for a walk. Let's hope tomorrow will prove better.

... has been put together today. It only contains five elements altogether, and one of those isn't even an Easter biscuit. So, the list is as follows:

1) Nutella bunnies
2) Coconut lambs
3) Easter bunnies made of quark-oil dough
4)Chocolate cookies with caramel-coconut filling and freeze-dried raspberries - this one is a new recipe that I want to give a try.
5) Pozsony crescent - although I might cheat with this one and make a baking powder version instead of the yeast dough one. We'll see.

Running up are alfajores cookies and the homemade version of the Kinder choco bons; the latter I'll make as little Easter eggs, most likely.

Aside from this decision, the day was rather dull. I went to choir practice, though, so at least I got out of the house.

Not much, actually. My Sundays are always the same: we got up an hour earlier, so that Mum could attend to Mass via TV, she gets her weekly shower, I try to find the easiest way possible to produce something to eat for lunch, I take down the dried washing... nothing terribly exciting.

On the other hand, boring, routine days are safe. So, for that price I can deal with the lack of excitement. Safety is something rare and precious in these times.

The only thing I keep missing is people. In smaller doses than at the time when I was still working, but I'd really like to have them around me more often. So, since I had to give up on people calling me, I called our recently widowed choir leader instead. Poor soul is in a really bad shape. As if the loss in itself weren't bad enough, she also has to deal with bureaucracy, financial problems and greedy heirs. Life can be really cruel sometimes.

In the creative corner I've finished the second felt kitty. Not a significant progress but progress nonetheless. Especially considering how unmotivated I've been lately. Which also means that the Easter baking will be cut back considerably, with only three or four sorts of biscuits and likely the same number of recipients.

We had beautiful weather today: sunshine and 16°C in the early afternoon. So after I had done my shopping trip, Mum and I finally got out of the house. The two things took me the whole morning and early afternoon, so I was accordingly exhausted after that. More so as I had to visit several shops, all relatively close to each other; close enough that taking the tram wouldn't help, so I walked all the way to the nearby small shopping centre at Savoy Park. The distance isn't great, one kilometre tops, but I'm clearly no longer used to good walks. Gone are the times when I had to jog down a fairly long street to work and back...

Fortunately, we still had leftovers, so no cooking was required. I was terribly lazy for the rest of the day, taking a nice, long nap and reading on the iPad. No writing, no crafting - I simply didn't have the energy. Getting old is no fun.

I decided to make some little felt cats, based on the TEDI Kitty's pattern, just smaller ones. Cut out the parts for three and worked on them a bit. One is ready to be sewn together, the other two are still in pieces but at least they have their eyes (tiny little buttons) and bows and lace collars. Except #3, that is, since that one is a boy. So he has a bow-tie and bangs. I think they'll be really cute.

Not much else happened. We decided to be lazy - well, except the cooking. Mum volunteered to make the layered sauerkraut casserole and I made apple compote. Other than that, we didn't really anything. I loved it. *g*

All this laziness allowed me to force my brains into gear and do a bit of writing. Which was the best part of the day.

I crossed the Danube today because I had a hairdresser's appointment; my hair looked so wild horses would have bolted in fear from the sight. A good thing we don't really have many horses in a big city, isn't it?

In any case, after my haystack had been tamed I made my usual round at the craft shops, etc. And what did I find? My favourite craft shop, a really big one, had closed at the end of January. It shows how often I got to go there; but it's big blow. They had so much wonderful stuff, even though they weren't exactly cheap. I'm moderately devastated.

To add insult to injury, AO3 had been down since last night, two. At least it was up and running in the early afternoon when I got home, which was a relief. I need my daily dosis of fanfic, since that's the only thing I read nowadays.

To end this entry on a positive note: I've finished the TEDI teddy clone. There will be pictures later, when I've made a few more plushies.

Due to the chiropodist visit yesterday I was forced to do the shopping today - again! Grrrr! I hate shopping on Saturdays, especially as I never manage to start before 10:30, due to Mum's daily schedule, and at time Lidl is a battlefield. *sigh* When I finally got home, it was nearly midday and I was so tired as if I had actually worked all the time.

Anyway, we decided to have a soup and sandwiches for lunch, since there was also the laundry that needed to be done and we were still recovering from yesterday, too. In the afternoon I did about two paragraphs of writing but was otherwise completely floored. We watched some telly and took respective naps, and that was it, basically.

In the early evening I called my young cousin (H's son) and we agreed that in a week and a half he's going to drop by and help us with some telly and computer issues. I hope this will work out; I'm so horribly helpless with such things.

For all those interested: picowrimo starts tomorrow. Writers, readers and shy lurkers are equally welcome - the more the merrier, and comments are highly appreciated.

... aka the first part of my Easter collection. Whether there'll be a second part is still to be seen, but I thought I'd post a pic of these cuties. Or rather a link, since Pinterest no longer allows pics posted there to be embedded into LJ entries, for reasons of their own.

Lookie, lookie:
https://hu.pinterest.com/pin/341640321754807406

Otherwise it was a quiet day. We tried to recover from the big cleaning frenzy, ate leftovers, made a heroic attempt to walk till the other entrance of our building (successfully; this was the first time Mum actually left the house in this year) and I made a lot of phone calls. To my goddaughter who had her name day today. To my friend Evie. To my friend Elise who's still down with a nasty cold she got from her youngest grandson. Toddler germs are dangerous. To my friend Erna (our art teacher). We also got a call from my oldest cousin. So it was a socially active day but much less so where physical activities are concerned. I'd take it every time.

We needed to gather our strength, as tomorrow we're going to have a visit from our talkative chiropodist lady, so...

Part one - the smaller part - of the scheduled cleaning frenzy is done. I've cleaned the balcony (which included first emptying it, then putting everything back in as soon as the floor was dry) and wiped the floor in the bathroom and the loo. I also emptied the kitchen for tomorrow. Mum spent almost two hours dusting her gazillion of knick-knacks that are displayed on every available surface of the living room and piling them high on the sideboard, so that the rest of the furniture could be moved around for vacuum cleaning purposes tomorrow. So, we are more or less ready for the big action. I just hope the new cleaning lady turns up. *fingers crossed*

For lunch, Mum ate the third portion of the horrible soup. I refused to touch it. We had these little frozen spinach and feta parcels in puff pastry that I only had to push into the oven, so cooking was easy. Tomorrow we'll have the other half of the package. No way I'll be in any shape to cook!

In the afternoon I recovered enough to finish one of my little Bolshies (= red bunnies), which is more than I had hope for in the morning. So who knows, perhaps I'll be stubborn enough to at least start the other one tomorrow. *g*