Thursday, April 29, 2010

May Day Plans

My grandmother taught me how to make May baskets back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was about 5 or 6  years old.  She died when I was 9 and I continued to make them every year.  They are pretty and although I make far fewer than she did, I love doing it and it makes me feel connected to her.  She also used to make about 5 kinds of fudge to put in them.  I don't do that!  LOL  I use flowers or one batch of candy or small trinkets.  Or oatmeal.  But I digress.

My mom saves cornmeal boxes for me as these are the base of the baskets.  I save them too but also use them for other crafts during the year, so her help in that regard is great.  But I have always been a last minute gal about running out to get the crepe paper.  This is not crepe paper in streamers.  It is long sheets of crepe paper that are then cut and twisted and wrapped round the basket.  The basket itself winds up looking somewhat like a flower when it is done.  Last year I had enough crepe paper in my "stash" that I didn't need to buy any. 

Somehow I looked at the calendar yesterday and went EEEKS!  It is April 28th.  You have made zero May baskets so far!!!  I went to my stash.  A few paltry pieces of crepe paper remained.  Then it hit me.  The small mom and pop store where I bought my supplies for this went out of business 2 years ago.  Between road construction on the street where  they were located and competition from a big box party store, they could not hold on.  So I called big box party store.  They don't sell it.  I called the local craft store.  They don't sell it.  Sigh. There is no where locally now for me to get this.  I did manage to find an on line source last night, so I can order for next year, but for this year, it is slim pickings.

Back to the oatmeal.  My mom had some blood work done this past week.  Her triglicerides were high and she was told she may be pre-diabetic.  (except mom refuses to hear the word PRE and keeps freaking out!) She is on a med for this and has to significantly change her diet.  This is not fun for her.  She said not to send fudge.  She is usually the one person who gets a batch of fudge in her basket.  I am not sending fudge.  I am sending organic oatmeal, almond butter and stevia.  LOL

2 comments:

Todd said...

Bummer about not being able to find local supplies :-( No overnight delivery possible? Just a thought. O am SUCH a man! LOL Gotta try and "fix" every problem I hear about. It's a curse! LOL

Lee said...

I might have been able to get it delivered overnight but I am way too um frugal (also spelled c-h-e-a-p) to do it that way! LOL I did scrape up enough from my stash to get this years baskets done though and will order early for next year!