Getting ready for Easter

Our long winter has turned into almost-summer. Now we are opening most of our windows, keeping just a few shades drawn, and living outside as we can. Marija asks to go outside all the time and often gets upset if I tell her to stay in.

But she came in to dye Easter eggs today, lured in by the other kids who came to dye with us. I enjoy teaching people how to dye the Latvian way, with onion skins, like my family always did growing up.

Here we are assembling our ingredients... we have an egg, some leaves and flowers from the yard, onion skins, and water for dipping.

We wet the leaves and flowers to help them stick to the egg. This was the only part Marija wanted to help with.

Actually, she just wanted to put one clover into the water, and then onto the egg, then back in the water, then onto the egg again...

Once she got bored of that and ran off to play with the kids, I stuck some more greens on.

The greenery leaves white spots on the egg, and the onion skins leave a brown pattern.

So we surround the eggs, then fold the cloth and wrap it all up...

The thread keeps everything together, and the initials (made with a permanent marker) let us keep track of who made which eggs.

We added leftover onion skins to a couple pots of water, heated the water to boiling and then added the eggs. After about 10 minutes, I turned the stove off and let the eggs sit in the brown water.

About 20 minutes after that, the eggs were ready. We ran them under cold water to cool them and then unwrapped...

Beautiful eggs!

The big one is a goose egg we got from a friend!

If you like videos, here is one with a little more information about the tradition.

Today was so nice, I saw neighbors doing all kinds of things outside: eating, sorting clothes, carving a deer out of wood. (Okay, Joe was the one with the deer, finishing his carving.)

But in the morning, before the kids on spring break started waking up and spilling out of their houses, it felt like Marija and I had the neighborhood all to ourselves, for playing in.

May your Easter be blessed by our loving, giving Lord of all.

Firsts

My baby had a busy day.

She learned to catch!

She really played with sand for the first time. And she learned to use a shovel! But she is still learning that it is easier to carry sand when the shovel has its scoop up.

And she got, for the first time, two timeouts in one day (in one hour, actually). What a lot of tears.

Full days

My days are full lately. Some days my heart is singing at all the wonder in this house and around it. Some days I want to call Joe on the phone just to say "help!" Many days I want to sing and call "help" both, though not usually at the same time.

I needed someplace to put this, so here it is:

"Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful."

Hebrews 10:19-23

Ahh, Marija's up!

October

The camera batteries were out, so I will have to remember: little blonde Marija in a yellow shirt and overalls, standing among all the orange pumpkins at the parking lot, patting her favorites with her hands. Blue skies and a happy baby...

A good weekend

I had thought I might want to rent a movie this weekend, but when I really thought about it, I realized I'd rather read and go on a nice walk with Marija and Joe.

So after we spent Saturday trying to fix up bikes and water heaters and the like (does anyone know why a water heater would mysteriously stop leaking?), we went to church Sunday and I read a couple articles and we ate Joe's strawberry sorbet and then we headed out to Laurel Springs Park near here.

Laurel Springs is perhaps most famous for its playground, which is so neat that even Joe went over to play with a digging machine in the sand area, but we spent most of our time investigating a walking trail that goes all around. Parts went along sunny edges of baseball fields, where grasshoppers flew out near our stepping feet, and other parts went through the shade, where we breathed deep because of the warm piney fragrance.

Marija talked to herself a long time, and clapped cautiously when a nearby ballfield erupted with cheers, but she quieted down about halfway. I found a thicket of blackberries and couldn't leave them uneaten, even though we'd already had desert.

Movies can wait until winter.

Maybe tomorrow I will get to post the pictures I've taken of Marija lately.

About harvest time

Some of our tomato crop

We've finally been harvesting our tomatoes... they make a really great sauce, but are best just fresh from the garden. I think they are better than candy.

I felt like stretching my legs today, so I tried mowing the lawn a bit, but I can't do it very well anymore, so I gave that chore back to Joe pretty quickly.

I look like I've swallowed a basketball.

Very hungry caterpillar

About those caterpillars... I think they may not leave much dill for me and Joe after all.

They look as if they have doubled in size in the last two days. There are seven of them, and though they spend a lot of their time sitting still, a few were eating as I watched today. They can eat well over an inch of dill a minute! At that rate they have totally stripped one of the plants and have moved on to some others.

I think I'll leave them, though, because I like watching them hang from their fat feet almost as much as I like butterflies. Though I told Joe that if we did want to save the dill bed, we could attempt a middle-of-the-night caterpillar transplant to some Queen Anne's lace growing along a house down the street.

Did you know that if an ant crawls along the nose of a caterpillar (because the caterpillar ate the dill flower the ant had been enjoying), the caterpillar will start to shake?

Today I had something like "walk barefoot in the grass" on my to-do list, and I got to cross it off at the end of the day! It was a really nice day.

We have guests

This is not as important as babies, but...

I do believe our dillbed has become home to some black swallowtail caterpillars.

I think it's handsome

I counted about a half-dozen, as well as some skins they left from when they molted! They make beautiful butterflies, and we should still have plenty of dill left over for our cucumber salads.

In other garden news, I had to tear out the squash plant (blossom end rot, augh!), but our tomato and pepper plants are sagging under the weight of ripening fruit.

We also have a pretty flower.

That is our clematis!

Snake sighting #2

This time, the snake in the yard was a bright green thread of a thing hiding under the ledge by the front door. It's the exact kind of snake I would like for a pet, actually, and after I got over my initial yelp of surprise I was tempted to pick it up (but didn't).

Seals

There are seals in San Diego. They have taken over a children's beach in La Jolla, a little ways north of downtown.

They are fast as fish in the water, but they look pretty lazy on land!

Cleaning house

Just listed 30-some items on Freecyle, hoping someone wants the things we no longer want (mostly yardsale leftovers). This usually ends with no one wanting the stuff we were using just recently, which I always take somewhat personally. But maybe things will go differently this time!

Meanwhile, here is my favorite freecycle post in a long time:

Wanted - couple of hens - any area

I have a little bantam rooster that is lonely. He lives in the barn with my
goats. I have tried grouping him up with my other chickens but they ganged up on
him and beat him up. So after nurseing him back to health I put him by himself.
But he seems lonely. So if you have 1 or 2 hens, young or old, that you would
like to give up, I am sure that would make "Henry" very happy. "

This one makes me laugh even now

Rainy days make me sleepy. I went to Mass with Joe this morning and then slept through most of it, oops.

On the way, I was feeling crummy and watching the rain come over the windshield and thinking about how I'll need to fight off the urge to nap while I finish my Bible study lesson today. 

"It'll be hard to study the Bible in this weather," I said. 

"You could just study inside," Joe said.

And if I'm the only one who laughs at that, that's okay.

Easter humor

On Saturday, we came back from church and Joe immediately went to check on the pizza dough he'd set to rise. 

"It is risen!" he said triumphantly. And a pause, and "It is risen indeed!" 

It was the best pizza dough.

I am glad because when I was reviewing the Easter story with the little kids at Latvian school yesterday and asked whether Jesus was a ghost or really alive, they answered surely, "really alive!" They could even tell me how they knew! 

Gosh, something's sunk in. It's wonderful. Other years they were so sure he was a ghost.

Our house has also seen the "broccoli of destruction," if you use Joe's translation, or "the broccoli of perdition" using mine.  If that doesn't make any sense, well, that is probably because you did not expect references to Christ's betrayal to come up while leftovers were being put away.

Music made for sharing

If you don't mind tapping your feet a bit, you can listen in here and tap along with me: 

The thing that entrances me about this video, besides the way the song builds, is the bass player, who apparently has a tiny baby in her backpack. My favorite comment from the YouTube page: "I'm guessing the baby is going to grow up to be a musician."

World waking up

At the monastery on weekdays, there are daffodils and cherry blossoms, and it is shawl weather again. Today Sandy was wearing something light red with sparkles.

At Mass on Sunday, we noticed a number of little girls in new pink jackets, and a few older women, too!

Swirled

Here is a puddle that froze in front of our house.

Sorry about the cracks. Joe and I drove over it in the car this morning!

Evening activities

Many of the people who have visited have commented on the number of candles we have around, especially in the living and dining area. We happen to have a lot of pretty candle holders, so we like to keep them out.

We use the candles pretty often, but the lights are usually on, too. Well, Joe decided to see whether all of the candles together would be enough to read by. So we turned out all the lights, and he read The Raven, Annabel Lee and other selections by Edgar Allen Poe. 

It seemed lighter than this once our eyes adjusted.

It was a great evening.

Spur-of-the-moment

The priest came by for a few minutes yesterday to bless the house yesterday. The was holy water EVERYWHERE.

(I say that with a grin, but Joe was a little shocked!)

Plus, we had a nice conversation about straw.

Early-morning surprise

I had nodded off in the pew before church at the monastery this morning when one of the women there came up to Joe and me, wished us a Merry Christmas (startling me awake) and then gave us a beautifully wrapped present! 

It took me a few seconds to recover from the shock. Joe, a little more collected, thanked her.

We both puzzled over what it might be and then opened it as soon as we left. A Christmas ornament! 

Some lettering on Minnie's skirt reads "1st Christmas together." The lettering on the package reads "2006," hehe.

I'm touched.

Advent wreath situation

When I was home yesterday to see my grandmother, I went toward the woods to look for greenery so I could fix up our advent wreath. We are not getting a Christmas tree this year, so it's our big Christmas decoration.

Yes, that is a ball of tinfoil. It worked fine, but was not so pretty.

Back at the parents' house in Cloverly, I set out toward the woods with clippers. But I didn't even make it to the pine trees there, because my neighbor's compost pile had some big  pine branches lying right on top! I clipped and clipped.

Look!

There was plenty for the Advent wreath.

Much better

Then I made a pine garland.

Whee!

Today Joe and I put it up and added some greenery to the door.

Door

And here are some silly shots Joe took. 

Added later: Maybe next year I will try adding cranberries! But how would one pose with cranberries?