Coloring Easter Eggs

From the Family Fun website,
I love this place! ...


Right out of the pot, when they're still hot, color with crayons.  They wax will melt on the heated eggs brilliantly.




Melted Crayon Eggs




Some cotton balls and pipe cleaners are about all you need for these adorable roly poly little lambs.  What child wouldn't love this?


Sheep Egg





With black olive bits, a long fresh chive and a couple of sliced radishes you could make this darling mouse.



Egg Mice








Egg Heads


This looks like fun for the whole family.  From olives to chives, tomatoes to parsley, use your imagination and introduce healthy foods in a really exciting way!

Fancy Feathered Friends

So easy with some feathers and a little clever trimming on the carton.  How precious in the Easter baskets!

Eggshell Bouquet

Likely not an easy craft, but if you should get a few nicely shaped egg cups whilst peeling shells try fashioning a few of these to decorate your springtime.


Happy Easter!!

horseback in AZ

Tomato Seeds

This year I searched for heirloom seeds.  I would like to try to save tomato seeds for my next gardening years, and these seeds are open-pollinators.  After much research, I settled on the following five varieties, all cold-weather, disease-resistant, and canning varieties.

1.  Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red
78 Days to maturity, mid-season

2. Silvery Fir Tree
55 Days, early-season

3. Legend
68 Days, early-season

4.  June Pink
68 Days, early-season

5.  Ilini Star
72 Days, mid-season

FREE
Louisiana Pink
79 Days, mid-season
Wilt resistant

Unfortunately, upon receiving my seeds, I promptly made a mistake.  I set my "Legend" seeds aside, thinking they were the FREE gift, and planted Louisiana Pink, thinking they were what I'd researched for so intently.

I used egg cartons, having poked holes into the bottoms.  I mixed peat and vermiculite.  Planted the seeds no more than 1/4 in. deep.  Lined the egg cartons onto a baking sheet, and set them in my south window.

I placed them into a plastic bag after watering them, then placed a heating pad underneath them.  I lined the bottom of each baking sheet with aluminum foil so that the heat will radiate to all the seeds, but I still turn them once each day.

I'm excited to see what will come of all my effort.  My start is a bit late, but should still get us our heirloom tomatoes and seeds.  I''l keep you posted as I take notes!

Easter Story Cookies

This is such a memorable way to teach the Easter Story to your children.  What better way to learn than hearing, tasting, seeing, and touching?  It has become a tradition in our home at Easter time.  These are to be made the evening before Easter. You will need:

1 cup whole pecans
3 egg whites
1 cup sugar
wooden spoon
Bible
1 tsp. vinegar
pinch of salt
Ziploc baggie
masking tape

1.  Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

2.  Place pecans in zipper baggie and let children beat them with wooden spoon to break into small pieces.  Explain that after Jesus was arrested, he was beaten by the Roman soldiers.  Read John 19:1-3.

3.  Let each child smell the vinegar.  Put 1 tsp. vinegar into mixing bowl.  Explain that when Jesus was thirsty on the cross he was given vinegar to drink.  Read John 19: 28-30.
4.  Add egg whites to vinegar.   Eggs represent life.   Explain that Jesus gave his life to give us life.  Read John 10:10-11.
 5. Sprinkle a little salt into each child’s hand.  Let them taste it and brush the rest into the bowl.  Explain that this represents the salty tears shed by Jesus’ followers, and the bitterness of our own sin.  Read Luke 23:27.
 6.  So far the ingredients are not very appetizing.  Add 1 cup sugar.  Explain that the sweetest part of the story is that Jesus died because He loves us.  He wants us to know and belong to Him.  Read Psalm 34:8 and John 3:1-3.
7.  Beat with a mixer on high speed for 12-15 minutes until soft peaks are formed.  Explain that the color white represents the purity in God’s eyes of those whose sins have been cleansed by Jesus.  Read Isaiah 1:18 and John 3:1-3.
 8.  Fold in broken nuts.  Drop by teaspoons onto waxed paper covered cookie sheet.  Explain that each mound represents the rocky tomb where Jesus’ body was laid.  Read Matthew 27:57-60.

9.  Put the cookie sheet in the oven, close the door and turn the oven OFF.  Give each child a piece of tape and seal the oven door.  Explain that Jesus’ tomb was sealed.  Read Matthew 27:65-66.

10.  GO TO BED!  Explain that they may feel sad to leave the cookies in the oven overnight.  Jesus’ followers were in despair when the tomb was sealed.  Read John 16:20 and 22.
 11.  On Easter morning, open the oven and give everyone a cookie.  Notice the cracked surface and take a bite.  The cookies are hollow!  On the first Easter, Jesus’ followers were amazed to find the tomb open and empty.  Read Matthew 28:1-9.

National Stress Awareness Day

Tax season is over, for most of us at least.

I found some old-time "cures" for what might ail you.

Take it easy, these might be potent!

"Brain Troubles, Headaches, Sea Sickness, Nervous Debility, Sleeplessness, Excessive Study Mania, Over Brainwork, etc etc"

1946

"Don't add to the upset of an upset stomach with overdoses of atacids or harsh physics . . . Take soothing PEPTO-BISMOL.
"This pleasant-tasting preparation is neither an atacid nor a laxative.  Its action is different.  It spreads a soothing, protective coating on irritated stomach and intestinal walls . . . thus helping to calm and quiet common digestive upsets."



1948



1948

1888

For sale by all the wholesale druggists

Dr. L. Q. C. Wishart's

Pine Tree Tar Cordial

 "A great remedy for the cure of throat and lung diseases,

and

Great American

Dispepsia Pills

for the cure of

Dyspepsia, Liver Complaint, Costiveness, Sick Headache, Disease of the Skin, Female Obstructions, &e."

1850
"Hutching's Dispepsia Bitters:
The most popular family medicine of the age, used by physicians of high standing.

"These bitters remove all morbid secretions, purify the blood, give great tone and vigor to the digestive organs, fortify the system against all future disease, can be taken with safety, at no time debilitating the patient - being grateful to the most delicate stomach, and remarkable for their cheering, invigorating, strengthening and restorative properties, and invaluable and sure remedy for the
DYSPEPSIA IN ITS WORST FORMS.

Dyspepsia, or indigestion, is the prevailing malady of civilized life.

There is more misery entailed upon the human race by the disorders that belong to eating and drinking, than perhaps any other.

"This disorder, Dyspepsia, have been the medium through which the public have been practiced upon for years, in the shape of innumerable vile nostrums, prepared and sold by persons who, in a majority of cases, are totally unacquainted with the maladies to which the human system is subjected.

"This very common disorder consists generally of a want of appetite, a sudden and transient distention of the stomach, eructations of various kinds, heart-burn, pyrosis, pain in the region of the stomach, perhaps vomiting, rumbling noise in the bowels, and frequent costiveness and diarrhea.

A long train of nervous disorders are also frequent attendants, as palpitations, impaired sight and hearing, with great mental despondency, severe pains in the head, etc.

"These BITTERS are strongly recommended to all persons laboring under this distressing complaint, and more especially to such persons as lead a sedentary life; for their manner of living is in every way calculated to produce Dyspepsia.

The great virtue of these BITTERS consists in their powerful restorative qualities - their ability to restore the tone of the chlyossietic viscera and invigorate the general system.

That most harassing and distressing feeling which affects the stomach is at once relieved, all morbid secretions expelled, and the general inflammatory action reduced.


"This medicine will be found to cure all complaints arising from
Disorder of the Stomach and Bowels
Billiousness
Yellowness of the Skin
Want of Appetite
Debility
Headache
Nervousness
Lowness of Spirits
Palpitation of the Heart
Costiveness
Heart-burn
Liver Complaint
Disorders of the Skin, Liver, and Kidneys
Acid Stomach
Diarrhea
Vertigo
Dimness of Sight
Jaundice
Wasting of Strength
Flatulence, with frequent Belching of Wind
Vitiated Taste
Constipation and Uneasiness of the Bowels
Burning Sensation in the Pit of the Stomach
Oppression after eating
Depression of Spirits

and all other diseases caused by an impaired state of THE BLOOD, LIVER, etc, which lend to debilitate and weaken the system.

F E M A L E S
Who suffer from a morbid and unnatural condition will find this Medicine of
INESTIMABLE VALUE"

Organizing Computer & Electronics Cords

Does this jumbled mess look familiar? 

And with the little heat and air currents creating an electrostatic field, there will be prolific dust bunny reproductive activity developing beneath the desk.

It's terrible trying to clean it.

I decided to arm myself.

While there's nothing I can do to prevent the static, I can make it easier to clean, and to cipher which cord belongs to which device.

With these simple household items I was able to simplify!

Glory be!

Scissiors, toilet paper tube, tape, paper hole punch, Sharpie, twistie ties.

Not surprisingly, there were a few stray cords.

(From where do they spring?)

I extract them and promptly relegate them to the quintessential "Honey Do" list.

Goodness knows, I don't know what they're for!

The goal here is to

1. Keep like with like

2. Eliminate excess cord length

3. Label clearly

Still ugly, but I can live with this.

More importantly, I can clean it!

A Summer Day With Grandma & Grandpa