Easter basket in a box

I arrived home today to a box on my porch. A distinctive box. One that indicated that it came from Australia. Woot! Goodies!

My mom sent me Easter candy. Essentially, it's an Easter basket in a box. I love you, Mom! You rock!

In addition to a rockin' t-shirt from the XXXX Brewery (Queensland beer!), the package was filled with lots and lots of chocolate. The food of the gods. Several varieties of Tim Tams (which are heavenly, and I require regular shipments to prevent Tim Tam withdrawal). Caramel filled chocolate eggs. Candy coated milk chocolate eggs. A dark chocolate egg with dark chocolate coated candied ginger in it, which is my current "I just can't get enough" variety of chocolate.

And the annual chocolate Easter Bilby. Yes, a bilby. NOT an Easter bunny. Because, in Australia, rabbits are a pest. They have no natural predators. Which means they flourish, and have become a serious pain in the rear for ranchers, devastating crops and grazing lands. So they don't have an Easter Bunny. They use Easter instead to draw attention to a native animal, the bilby. And the Darrell Lea company makes Easter Bilbies in milk chocolate, dark chocolate and white chocolate.

Not one chocolate Easter bilby has arrived intact. Not one. My mom's been doing this for a good 10 years now, and every bilby arrives in pieces. Apparently the turbulence on the flight is just too much for their delicate sensibilities. Fortunately, the chocolate still tastes just as good.

Also included was the amazing Flat Pack Chocolate Easter Egg from Bloomsberry & Co. Some assembly required! And the package even provides instructions...but you have to provide your own egg-shaped mould. They also provide a disclaimer that reads:

IMPORTANT NOTICE: The makers of the amazing Flat Pack Chocolate Easter Egg offer no warranty either explicitly or implied as to the success of your endeavors when attempting to assemble this process. As you can imagine, working with chocolate is not east and requires a high level of skill. Therefore your chances of completing the task to a satisfactory standard are, in a word, slim. We've never managed it.

But the chocolate it is made of all fair trade ingredients. Frankly, I'm not going to bother to take the time to try to make the egg. Too much work. I'm just gonna eat the chocolate.


Excuse me, I have to go stuff my face with Easter chocolate goodness now.

This is Spring?

You know how I mentioned that Spring had headed South for Easter weekend? Yeah.

We had snow flurries this afternoon. Nothing stuck, but it was definitely snow flurries. Light fluffy stuff twirling through the sky. It looked pretty with the sun peeking through the clouds and glinting off all the tiny little snowflakes floating in the air. But it was still SNOW. Otherwise known as ICE CRYSTALS. I took a couple of pictures because I couldn't believe it.

Easter is tomorrow. I'm sure we had snow a couple of times when I was little, there may even be a couple of pictures of my sister and I in our fancy Easter clothes standing in the snow in front of the house. But that's not what comes to mind when I think of Easter. Easter for me means flowers and new dresses with short sleeves and new shoes. Blooms and buds on the trees. Spring. A time of birth and rebirth, and new growth and regrowth. Warmth and sun and blue sky and lots and lots of colors, lots of different shades of green on the ground and in the trees, and don't forget the colored eggs.

Color. Lots and lots of color. NOT white snow. The only white is on your shiny new shoes and crisp white dress gloves and, if you're lucky enough to get one, your fancy Easter hat with the big satin ribbon on it. [OK, so I think I only had a hat ONE year, and I remember wearing it drove me nuts, but Easter still makes me think of fancy hats.]

And we have SNOW. I hope the Easter Bunny (or Easter Bilby for those in Australia) has an extra thick winter coat with a hat to keep his ears warm. And little booties for his poor cold little paws as he hides all those eggs.

Now I understand why the Easter Bunny always hid eggs INSIDE the house and not outside in the yard when I was little.