Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday and the first day of Lent. The traditional color for Lent is purple, signifying the days of darkness before Christ's Easter resurrection. In our church, the crosses are covered up with purple cloths and the word "Alleluia" can not be spoken until Easter. Traditionally Lent is a time of contemplation and self study before Easter. It represents the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness before he gave himself up to be crucified. During this time it is said that Satan came to Jesus three times to tempt him, but of course he was able to resist the temptations. Now, in order to prepare for Easter, people set two part goals for behaviors they would like to change in themselves. The first part of the goal usually involves a habit the individual would like to break representing a temptation for them that they would like to be able to resist, and the second part involves a skill or habit they would like to encourage. For example, someone may want to give up smoking, and exercise more, or watch less t.v. and read more books. So this year our Lenten goals are as follows:

J.B. Give up chocolate/ increase eating vegetables.
Mom Give up between meal junk food like chips and candy for healthier snacks like apples and carrots. I would also like to complete J.B.'s scrapbook for 2008 which will mean a decrease in Sim time (SAD, but notice I said DECREASE, not obliterate, because we all know how weak willed I am when it comes to Sims and the year I did TRY to give it up for Lent was a complete and utter disaster and no one wants to go through that again!). I would also like to complete another scrapbook which I have been working on since 2003.

What are your goals for Lent?


Oh. P.S. Our pancakes last night were SPECTACULAR! I took Aunt Robin's apple pie filling and mixed some of it into the pancake batter, cooked the apple pancakes up, and served them with whipped cream and caramel ice cream topping. Tasted like warm apple pie! YUM YUM YUM!

Happy Pancake Day!

Are you wondering what to fix for dinner tonight? How about pancakes! Today is "Shrove Tuesday" which in the Episcopal tradition is commonly called Pancake Day. Traditionally pancakes are eaten on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday which marks the beginning of Lent. Pancakes are the food of choice, because they use a lot of milk, flour, fat and eggs, which are foods that were usually restricted during lent. Pancakes are a great way to use up all those ingredients, and get them out of the house! While it is true that these restrictions to not use eggs or milk are not exactly abided by anymore, pancakes are still a great thing to have for dinner. Invite your friends over, and have a Shrove Tuesday Pancake party. Delicious!

How to grow sugar crystals.

How to grow sugar crystals

Stuff you need:

A glass jar

pencil

string

paper clip

paper towel

saucepan

stirring spoon

1 cup water

3 cups sugar

food coloring (optional)

1. Read all of these instructions before starting.

2. Bring the water to a boil in the saucepan.

3. Pour the water carefully into the glass jar. (It is recomended that you first heat the glass jar by running it under hot tap water while you are waiting for the other water to boil. Do not pour boiling hot water into a cold glass jar or it could shatter!)

4. SLOWLY add the 3 cups of sugar into the jar of hat water. Do this one spoon full at a time. Take your time and make sure the sugar has dissolved before adding more. Continue until the sugar is no longer dissolving, and starts to collect at the bottom of the jar.

5. Add food coloring if you desire.

6. Tie one end of the string to the paper clip. Measure the length needed to tie the other end to the middle of the pencil so the paper clip hangs down into the solution without touching the bottom of the jar.

7. Cover with a paper towel or plastic wrap to keep dust out.

8. Allow the jar to sit undisturbed until the crystals are the size you would like them to be, then carefully take the string out of the jar, let it dry, and observe your crystals.

9. Sugar crystals taste good too!

365 February 15 to 20

I am DONE with winter. Done. Done I tell you. Done! Done! Done!

Happy Hearts Day!!!

Happy Valentine's Day!
Jb and The Boy celebrated at their school on Thursday, and get Friday off. We love getting Valentines from classmates. It is so fun to go through them all. The Boy even got one
(whisper: from a girl) that said "I LOVE YOU!" He was soooooo embarrassed, and would just die if he knew I had typed this. (So SHHHHHH!)

Crystal update

Jb's sugar crystals have finally decided to grow. For some strange reason, the salt crystals are mainly growing OUTSIDE of the glass, but the sugar crystals are doing what we expected. It is really quite interesting to see the clear crystals get larger and larger. This is a picture of the orange sugar crystals. JB is also growing red sugar crystals, and blue salt crystals. She also has the green commercial kit, that so far doesn't appear to be growing anything. The science fair is in two weeks so she has started researching and writing her report. She and daddy will try the commercial kit experiment again tonight to see if they may have done something wrong, or if the kits just don't work.

365 album page 9

365 album page 8

365 January 26 to February 1, 2009

Click on the image to make it larger.