Well, it's Easter weekend.

As I think about the holiday, many thoughts go through my head: traditions, the true meaning of Easter, bunnies and eggs. I think about what I know, what I don't know, what I remember from my childhood and what Easter means for me and my family today.

Let's get one thing out of the way-for me, Easter has always been about magical bunnies and hunting for delicious eggs. I know it's supposed to have deep religious meaning, but the reality is my family never paid a whole lot of attention to that when I was a kid and I'm not crazy enough to think I could teach those lessons to my own kids. At best, I might tell my kids that Easter isn't supposed to be about the eggs, it's about Easter bunnies that died for our sins...you get the idea. Please don't judge me.

I mentioned delicious eggs. Perhaps this was a bit of a stretch. The eggs we searched for were hollow and about the size of a child's palm. Inside they were white, outside they were coated with what felt and tasted like sugared wax. Their nutritional equivalent would be a burnt candle wick. I didn't like the taste of the eggs and even then realized that what I was eating was really, really bad for me.

But we didn't care.

We turned the house upside down looking for those eggs and celebrated our full baskets of these barely edible science experiments.

We also got a chocolate bunny. Sometimes he was solid chocolate and smaller, sometimes he was hollow and much, much bigger. The solid chocolate bunnies required all of your bite strength to bite off their heads and the larger bunnies had yellow eye balls made of icing. I wondered if any child looked forward to eating yellow icing bunny eye balls, especially with so much chocolate otherwise?

I don't remember how old I was when I no longer believed in the Easter bunny, but I remember the year I was determined to catch him in the act. I was allowed to sleep on the floor downstairs and after hours of willing myself to stay awake (I may or may not have had a net), my mission failed and I woke up in the morning, surrounded by multi-coloured reminders that I wasn't ready for the big-time.

It's nice to see my own kids get excited at Easter. They rush down the stairs and begin their search for eggs before their eyes are open. My daughter is old enough to find some eggs for herself, then help her brother find some for him.

I think we got the hollow bunnies for them this year.

Remind me to ask the yellow eye ball question.

My life is pretty busy.

I spend my days at school and my evenings chasing kids and doing school work. Weekends are more of the same.

I could make stuff up, but really, this pretty much sums up my schedule.

So, it comes as no surprise that my house has become extremely disorganized and a breeding ground for clutter. What did surprise me however was the recent announcement from my partner in crime, my wife, that she was going to take on the project of organizing the house.

Hallelujah!!!

As I am an all around great guy and fantastic husband in every way, I threw my full support behind her as she tackled this task. (Note to readers: I'm busy and can't possibly commit time to this, so my full support equals staying out of the way, doing my best not to criticize and refraining from going through the garbage bag looking for stuff that she's thrown out that I really want to keep).

I'm seeing real progress each time I come home and she's emptied another drawer of surprises, sorted and purged. Garbage bags are waiting for me each night, filled with "stuff" we had held onto for God knows what reason. Space that hasn't been available since moving day screams "hello Rick!!! Come and enjoy me!!!" (the voices seemed strange to me at first too, but after a while they seem warm and inviting).

I've had every reason to believe that we were headed to clutter-free utopia.

Until...

I walked into the kitchen and saw...

The headless ceramic rooster.

Allow me to explain. The rooster had been a gift from my wife's cousin when we moved into our first house. She said that roosters brought good luck and I never had any reason to doubt her, so I took this as the truth. Ok, so I always meant to verify this, but didn't.

The rooster lived on the kitchen counter in four different houses (including our current home), bringing us good luck on a daily basis, until one day his luck ran out and he fell to the floor and his head fell off. As much as the rooster had been a positive influence on my life, also carrying sentimental value as a gift from my wife's cousin, a headless ceramic rooster meets my definition of garbage in every way. For reasons I cannot understand, the headless ceramic rooster has continued to live on my counter for a period of two years!!! No longer does the sight of the rooster provide me with a smile and the knowledge that he alone is responsible for my good fortune on this earth. No, he is headless and quite honestly just brings me down.

Why oh why can't he be thrown out???? If not now, when???

There are no answers to these questions, only quiet mumblings about how she can't bring herself to put him out of his misery.

I'm no expert on organizing and de-cluttering, but somehow I can't believe that hanging onto a headless ceramic rooster can ever be part of an effective plan.

Perhaps I'm wrong? Only time with tell.

Someone asked me today, "If you could speak another language what would it be?"

Sadly, instead of filling my head with dreams of languages that would prove useful in my professional and personal life, the question merely reminded me of the colossal failure I call "Rick trying to learn French."

Like most Canadian kids my failure to learn French began in elementary school. The first few years of French lessons centred on learning the names of various objects and perhaps the odd phrase. In my second year of French class I was selected to play the lead in a short play. I've forgotten the lines of my character, "Henri", but suspect they translated to, "My name is Henri, I am a boy of 8 years, may I please go to the bathroom, windows, pencil, notebook."

Through high school it was confirmed that "may I please go to the bathroom?" was indeed the most important phrase in the entire French language. Other phrases such as "I speak French" and "I do not speak French" would also be drilled into our heads, though I suspected at the time that I would not require both upon graduation. With some coaching, I was able to confidently state that "the bread was ON the table, the cat was IN the tree and the ball was UNDER the car." I fully expected that someday I would thank my lucky stars that I could converse with French people about tables, cats, balls and what may or may not be on, in and under them.

Alas, it was not to be.

Years later, my work brought me to New Brunswick, Canada's only bilingual province (if you thought Quebec was bilingual, I'll give you a few minutes to google "how many people speak English in Quebec?"). Thinking this was my best opportunity to learn the language, I came up with the great idea of listening to French learning tapes in my car. The lessons began with a series of words, spoken slowly, which I was to repeat. I had a flare for imitating the accent on the tape, my car filled with a perfect repetition of "anniversaire, fenetre, jour, bonjour, au revoir, salut, cher, formidable." As my confidence grew I heard myself saying "Claudette, Marie-Claire, Helene, Guy, Serge, Andre, Alain" to perfection and hoped I would soon encounter people named Claudette and Serge so I could wish them a good day and ask about their windows.

It wasn't long however until I got to the other side of the first tape where the French man now spoke much quicker said things like "blerp froo froo de dieu" and "slink hatatata de la schmule" and "roula hippidy heep heep a la zapadeedapdap."

As calmly as I could, I replied "WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?"

Sometimes I would utter a helpful phrase I picked up along the way..."are you KIDDING??? WHAT DID YOU SAY????"

The man on the tape apparently didn't hear me and instead of slowing down, he sped up so I was able to totally miss much longer phrases in the same amount of time. The French language is apparently more than a series of objects with names and my prior schooling had not adequately prepared me for this.

Not quite ready to give up I wondered if talking to real French people and not cruel French people who lived on cassette tapes in my car might not be a better way to learn? I started slowly, learning how to order a medium coffee with milk at Tim Horton's. Apparently I fooled no one into believing I was French as their answer was ALWAYS in English! Perhaps these servers would be more impressed if I asked to go to the bathroom or told them the ball was UNDER the car?

It was hopeless.

Someday, when I'm in France, Burkina Faso, Burundi or Djibouti and can't use the world's 14th most popular language, I will feel great shame and disappointment.

And now you know why.

"He who fails to plan, plans to fail"

At the beginning of this year, I sat down to write my New Years' Resolutions. The process goes as follows:

1. Take last year's resolutions

2. At the top of the page stroke out 2009

3. Write 2010

4. Ta-da!

Realizing this wasn't going to get me anywhere, I came up with something a little different. I called it my "Life Plan for 2010." It was five paragraphs that outlined where I wanted to be/what I wanted to do in 2010 in the following categories: physical me, emotional me, family, career and money. I've looked at the plan regulary (not daily as I intended) and I've done a really good job of living the plan. As a result, I'm feeling really good about my life these days and can point to a number of things that are making a difference.

In no particular order here's my Top 10 List:

1. I'm exercising nearly every day. I've made this a priority and make no apologies for it. To find the time, I've just cut out a lot of bad TV.

2. I'm eating good, healthy foods. I'm also using fitday.com to track my calories, so I know when I'm eating more than I should.

3. I'm reading. No, not Corporate Communications textbooks, I'm getting lost in some great reads. 30 minutes a night at bedtime is another priority (see cutting out bad TV).

4. I'm turning off my BlackBerry. Not only has this made me more productive with my school work, but my overall mental health is improved (insert joke about Rick's mental health here). I needed this mental break and didn't realize it.

5. This wasn't on the Life Plan, but I told myself winter was only three months. Somehow that kept me from ever getting too depressed about cold, grey days. I knew they would be over really soon.

6. I'm playing with my kids. The BlackBerry is off, my school work is set aside and I'm all theirs. In the past I haven't always done a good job of being with them when I'm with them and I'm making more of an effort. It's so much fun for all of us!

7. I took the kids to their first hockey game. I don't want to be one of those dads that can't make time for special little things like that and will look for more ways to expose them to new things together.

8. I'm really enjoying "the little things." A short coffee break, a glass of wine or a little bit of time to read the newspaper. I've known for a while that I don't need a lot to be happy, but even then didn't appreciate some of those small rewards that I already had.

9. I'm getting excited about my job search. It's easy to let the thought of possible joblessness (after graduation) stress you out, but I'm choosing to view it as the next great challenge. I'm focused on networking and building my brand and feel like I'm going to make something big happen.

10. I'm writing. I love to write and this blog has been a great outlet for me. I think I'll be blogging beyond this program.

That's me. How about you? Doing anything different in 2010 to be happy?

A few years after I was born, a hotel called Wheels Inn was opened in Chatham, Ontario.

This was no ordinary hotel. There were games and water slides and an indoor/outdoor pool. It seemed that most of my classmates went to this magical hotel and their stories filled my head with dreams of swimming right out of the hotel into the sunshine.

Sadly, I never got to go to Wheels Inn with my family and without a doubt it was the single worst, most traumatic, life-altering...ok, maybe it was just a mild disappointment, but it certainly did stick with me.

So, when I had the chance to take my kids to Great Wolf Lodge in Niagara Falls I jumped on it. For the past three years we've made a two-day, one-night trip to the hotel and every year, the experience gets better.

I'm sure we had some fun on our first trip, but the only thing that I remember is "the night from hell". My daughter came down with a bad cold while we were on our trip and just couldn't sleep alllllllllllll night long. Crying and complaining dominated the night and sleep was impossible for anyone. I pride myself on my patience, but when daddy doesn't sleep, daddy is grumpy. And when daddy is grumpy, no amount of water sliding or being pelted in the head by buckets of water dropped by strangers from 20 feet is going to cheer me up.

Thankfully, year two was a different story. The kids were healthy and sleeping was no problem. My daughter was very excited to bring along a character named "Flat Stanley" on the trip. Flat Stanley had come to her class on loan from a school in the U.S. and each child was asked to bring him home and take pictures of his adventures which would be sent to this other class. Flat Stanley, as his name suggests, is a two-dimensional, laminated piece of cardboard and he was going to Great Wolf Lodge!! As a parent, I've learned that you just roll with things like this and it does you no good to question whether Flat Stanley can swim, meets the height requirements for the slides, or has any food allergies.

As luck would have it, one of my daughter's classmates was also going to be at Great Wolf Lodge at the same time, so each would have the responsibility of Flat Stanley for one day. We would have to find "Kamden" and her family to arrange the hand off. (As a side note I've also learned that comments like "Kamden? That's a really weird name!!" are problematic and are to be avoided). Great fun was had by all and I suspect Flat Stanley had nothing but positives to report when he returned home.

Year three truly was the best yet. The kids went on every slide in the park and I managed to find the energy to keep up with them. Everyone slept and the kids got along famously. I had to laugh when my son jumped on a girl's back in the wave pool, thinking it was my daughter because she had the identical swim suit. The girl didn't quite know what to make of the little monkey and the look on his face when he realized his mistake was priceless.

My daughter took home a stuffed wolf as her souvenir which has since been named "Abbey". My son wanted two toys and a whoopee cushion as his souvenirs. One day he might look back on those as foolish purchases. I'll look back on the trip and remember a great time.