5 bullet Sunday

1. Last Sunday was Easter Sunday and I set up another epic egg hunt for Libby and Mae. They start with a clue and then each egg they find after that has a clue for the next one, and so on. In the photo above, they are reading a clue. They love these egg hunts! Mae's big prize at the end of the hunt was a set of dollhouse size bunnies (Calico Critters) that she could play with in her little gnome garden. Libby got a video game with a very long name: Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaire's Conspiracy. It was a really beautiful day and I wanted to go out, but everywhere I wanted to go we were not allowed. We ended up going to a public park in an undisclosed location because the park was somewhat out of the way and also has a very long nature trail that I hoped it would be ok to walk. I also chose that park because I know the woman who lives across the street and I hoped that I could convince her not to call the police. I didn't need to worry. When we got to the park, the woman that I knew was actually hosting an Easter service in the front yard. There were lots of people there and they weren't wearing masks or distancing at all. I awkwardly said hello to my friend and then Libby and Mae went to play on the swings. A sign was posted saying that the park amenities were closed, but nothing was taped off the way they are at other parks. At first we were the only ones at the park but then a few other families came and had picnic lunches on the grass. No one else played on the equipment, although eventually my friend came over and pushed her dog on the swing (yes, really).  Later in the week, a friend of ours rode his bike over to our house and then he said I was irresponsible for taking Mae to the park. Twice this week. That I was acting like an "American", he used air quotes so you know just what he thinks of Americans. I told him if he was so scared of the virus he probably shouldn't come over to my house, then. 

2. My charm bracelets have been selling like crazy and I just figured out why. It is because Etsy started advertising all products on Google. I don't remember them telling me about this. The reason it matters is because right now the advertising is free, but starting May 1 I have to pay for it. Which is fine, because clearly it is working, but it means I have to stop selling some of my products on Etsy because the advertising fee is pretty expensive and not all of my products have that much margin. So I am glad I figured it out this week while it is still free. Libby is now designing her own fangirl charm bracelet and Shannon is helping us test some product.

3. We got a stimulus payment which actually came as a complete surprise to Mike and me. I stopped reading about stimulus checks when it didn't seem like we qualified for one. I suppose something changed after I stopped reading the news. It was nice because Mike had told Mae we could not afford to buy bird seed for her bird feeder, and after we got the payment he went and got a nice big bag of seed for her.

4. I have been watching a lot of unusual Christmas movies from the 30s, 40s, and 50s. My favorites so far are A Christmas Wish starring Jimmy Durante, and We're No Angels starring Humphrey Bogart.

5. Since the libraries and bookstores are closed we have been using a Little Free Library that is near our house but I never actually stopped at before. We have gone there twice this week. Well, three times. We brought a lot of books there today and we feel very good about it.