Tag: Easter

Good Friday

Lent is soon over: it’s Good Friday, but Easter Sunday is coming! Here are three haikus I wrote for this year’s Lenten journey.

Fast from complaining,
And alter your mindset to
Feast on gratitude.

Practice a new way.
Fast from being critical,
Feast on uplifting.

Lent can be a time
to exercise letting go
and form new habits.

I trust these reminders will carry on.

Zoom-ing

I had not heard of the communication app called Zoom until this pandemic took over our lives. Then Zoom quickly became a part of everyday language, like email and texting. So we downloaded Zoom and started using the “user-friendly” app to stay in touch with others.

We have used Zoom to connect with both our sons and their families at the same time. It’s so nice to see everyone: Gary and me in Northfield, our oldest son and his family in Minneapolis, and our youngest son and his family in Colorado.

We have used Zoom to connect with other groups too. I meet weekly with my book club.

My wonderful book club buddies.

I’ve participated in a church ministry meeting using Zoom, and small group. We connected with out-of-state friends over a “social  hour” one evening.

I have also started a story time with my two grandchildren in Colorado…I set up the meeting and their parents get them situated on their end and then I start reading children’s books to them and they stay focused and seem to enjoy it as much as I do. It feels  good to me to be able to connect with them this way.

Reading to my grandchildren on the other side of the screen…in Colorado.

We even had an Easter egg hunt over Zoom. On Easter Sunday Gary and I hid Easter eggs around our house.

An Easter egg hidden in our Christmas cactus.

Gary took his phone using Zoom and walked around the house letting the grandchildren find the eggs as he scanned the rooms. When the kids spotted an egg they’d call it out and tell us the color. It turned out well…it was fun to see all three grandkids engaged in this activity (the fourth grandson is a newborn). They may not remember this Easter egg hunt but we sure will. It helped me overcome my sense of sadness at not being able to gather together in person to celebrate Easter, my favorite holiday.

We collected the empty eggs into an Easter basket I made many years ago.

And so, the beat goes on…and we will continue to use Zoom to connect with family and friends. This pandemic would be a lot more difficult without the technology we have these days to stay in touch. I’m grateful for it.

Easter Eggs

It’s been awhile since I’ve colored eggs for Easter, but with our grandchildren here of course we had to do it. I hard boiled 11 eggs and ate one so that left us with 10 eggs. 😉

I plopped the tablets from the egg decorating kit into cups of vinegar and made several bold, color dyes to chose from. 

A fun activity for all ages.

The kids (of all ages) had fun drawing on the egg with a clear wax pencil or crayon, deciding which color to dip the egg into, then watching and waiting, with anticipation, to see how their egg would turn out. 

The Easter Egg with Christmas Tree.

The most unique egg is one our grandson envisioned and had help with the drawing. He has talked about Christmas trees since Christmas…he was so enthralled with our tree…so he wanted a Christmas tree on his Easter egg. O well, we couldn’t have Easter without Christmas.

Happy Easter in Portuguese.

An egg with Happy Easter written in Portuguese, the other language we hear in our house these days, is another special egg for our basket.

Adding mini-stickers to the dry eggs the next day.

 Ukraine is known for their beautiful Easter eggs. I have a bowl full of Ukrainian Easter Eggs. I brought a few home with me from my visits there. These eggs are wood, not the typical, fragile “real” eggs. Ukrainian Easter Eggs are amazing… detailed, intricate, artistic. I took a class on how to paint Ukrainian eggs but I never caught on to the technique. It is an art, and like all art, it usually takes much practice, and some talent.

My Carnival Glass bowl full of Ukrainian Easter Eggs.

I enjoyed watching my grandchildren having fun decorating their Easter eggs in their own creative way, and their eggs are just as special.

Easter Traditions

When our boys were growing up we had a tradition of buying them new Easter shirts to wear to church on Easter Sunday….just like girls getting new a Easter dress I suppose. The shirts would often be the same style but a different color or pattern. That tradition continued into high school (although the shirts no longer matched). Often we would take them to get a picture taken with their new shirts.

One year I made Easter baskets for them. A friend and I were taught how to weave baskets and we would get together after the kids were in bed and to make them. That’s when I could stay up past midnight.

An Easter egg hunt in the house was tradition too, but when the boys were very young we had healthy options like raisins, stickers, and such, instead of candy.

I rarely bought a new Easter outfit for myself. When I was a little girl I don’t remember getting a new dress for Easter but it seems like something my mom would have done. This is the type of question I can no longer ask her or dad since they both have passed away. Therefore,  I like recording our own family traditions.