The best way to a woman's heart is through the self check-out line.

I hope y'all had a wonderful Easter with your family. We had a nice weekend of being silly, playing games, lounging and eating. But, mostly eating.

When a holiday is approaching, I usually plan my menu in advance. I'll add or change a few things at the last minute, but I usually know ahead of time what I am going to cook.

This time, I couldn't decide on our Easter dinner menu until the very last minute. (And by dinner, I mean lunch, because I'm Southern and the meal was on a Sunday. That's a whole other post.)

I grew up eating ham and potato salad on Easter. Mama knows how to make a good ham. I think it is one of her specialties. I didn't inherit her expertise. Besides, ham is not at the top of Hubs' food list, my daughter can take it or leave it, and the salt just makes me bloat.

So, I went with something else.

Turkey and dressing.

Yeah, I know. It's not November. But my family can eat turkey and dressing any time of year. I can eat dressing any time of day. I love it. The homemade kind. Cornbread made the night before. Homemade chicken stock. The kind of dressing that's so good it will make you slap your mama.

Good thing my mama is five states away.

I went to THE grocery store on Saturday with all of the other last minute planners. I was joined by patient husbands who are only trained to go to the store and buy things like "one can of chicken broth" and "all-purpose flour" only to go home and get yelled at because they bought the off brand of broth and some freakish organic, unbleached flour which will not work for a pound cake!

Bless their untrained hearts.

I filled the last cart in the store with everything I needed for our Easter dinner and headed home to cook.

Sunday morning we got up, checked what the Easter bunny had brought for our daughter, then headed to church. I have to say it was one of the best Easter worship experiences I've had.

We returned home and I realized that I should have started cooking that morning. It's a good thing the Easter bunny visited or else we would have starved. Those peanut M & M's are packed with essential protein.

In the meantime, I was getting everything ready for us to color eggs and have an egg hunt. I had forgotten to get some plastic eggs at the store the day before in my hurried attempt to escape the crowd.

Hubs went to Wal-mart. He returned with plastic eggs, a half-eaten bag of Doritoes and the final season of Seinfeld. He must have known how long it would take me to cook that turkey breast.

While he was gone, I realized that I had used all the white vinegar in a load of laundry a few days earlier. We were going to have to have pastel eggs.

Hubs offered to go to the store again.

Oh, yes he did. I think it gives him a chance to practice at self check-out.

Our Easter dinner (which is usually lunch) was an early supper, but no one seemed to mind because they were allowed to eat Easter candy when normally I would say it was going to spoil their dinner/supper.

We finally ate two days' worth of cooking in a manner of fifteen minutes.

As we cleared the table, Hubs said,"Thanks for making a dinner that was all complicated."

Which is his tender way of telling me he appreciates the hard work.

He's a grateful man with an incredible appetite for Doritoes and Peanut M&M's, remarkable speed at self check-out, and patience for a wife with poor list-making skills.

Bless his trained heart.