For Friday, April 2nd, 2010

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE

APRIL 2^ND, 2010

It's FINALLY FRIDAY!

Those that went south for Spring Break have nothing over us in Northern Ohio right now. Our Thursday temps reached 81 degrees.

How wonderful it was to come home from work and put my flip flops on. After months of layers of clothing, I almost feel light as a feather. I know it won’t stay this warm as our normal temps are right around 55 degrees and next week we’ll be back to normal. For now I’m extremely happy being warm for a change.

THINKING

It’s Good Friday. One of the most solemn days of the year.

Friday of Holy Week has been traditionally been called Good Friday or Holy Friday. On this day, the church commemorates Jesus’ arrest (since by Jewish customs of counting days from sundown to sundown it was already Friday), his trial, crucifixion and suffering, death, and burial.

Many observe Three Hours: By meditation on Jesus’ crucifixion and by reading the Biblical account together. Sing old hymns of the Crucifixion and the Cross: Were You There When They Crucified My Lord? The Old Rugged Cross, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.

Today: Pray: Find a few quiet minutes, at work, at home to be still, silent and present

NEW IN THE KITCHEN

FRIDAY IS PIZZA FOR DINNER

EasterPizza

Sugar cookie mix
Vanilla Frosting
Jelly Beans
Gel Icing

Mix the cookie mix up and put it in a round pan. 9x1.5 in. Bake it (it took this size 15 minutes, but adjust according to the size used). If you don't have a round one, do a square one

Once cooled and out, add frosting to the middle to imitate the pizza sauce effect. Then decorate it. Sprinkled on jelly beans and edge it with green gel. Now you have a sweet treat to enjoy.

PRAYERS

Christ our salvation, you gave yourself up to death out of love for us, help us to show your love to one another

Amen

Please pray for God's protection of

our troops and HIS wisdom for their

commanders.

Lord, hold our troops in

your loving hands.

Protect them as they protect us.

Bless them and their families for the

selfless acts they perform for us

in our time of need. I ask this in the

name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.

AND bless our Police Officers, Firefighters

and Paramedics and EMT's!!!

AMEN

AROUND HOME

There is a peaceful day ahead for me. My replacement doesn’t work on Fridays, the bosses are on vacation and I’ll have the office to myself.

No doubt it will be a long day, but that’s ok. One more week and I’m done with work all together!

FAMILY

As my father was Hungarian, I thought I’d share a little bit about Hungarian Easter Customs today.

The two, most known customs of Easter are the sprinkling and the egg-painting. Both are very common in both urban and rural areas.

A couple of decades ago men poured water on women in rural areas and women changed their clothes after each sprinkling. Boys often dragged girls to the well and poured water on them with pail. Sometimes they washed them in creek.

Today women wear casual dresses for sprinkling, not folk costumes. Also, men sprinkle with cologne, not with water

Easter is a 2-day holiday in Hungary. On Monday boys and men visit all of their women relatives, friends, neighbors, often even if they are not close friends. Boys in small groups, fathers with their sons, or single men leave early in the morning and their "tour" last all day long. They greet girls and women with poems (mostly with a funny poem about Eastern sprinkling) and sprinkle them with cologne. The girls must reward they boys who spray them. They give them coins or Easter eggs.

Women usually prepare in the previous days by cleaning up the house thoroughly, decorating, cooking and painting a couple dozen eggs.

The simplest way of painting eggs is to cook the egg enveloped into a dented leaf, in painting water. The covered part of the egg remains white and will show the pattern of the leaf.

Painting liquid can be made from onion skin, wild pear, green walnut or other vegetables yielding different natural colors.

Sometimes women write the egg. They draw folk patterns on the egg by melted wax and put the eggs into painting water after this. The egg remains white below the wax and will show the pattern.

But the most beautiful eggs are painted by hand with different colors following traditional folk patterns.

In many Hungarian villages, people would not light a fire, even in their homes until the new fire had been lit in the church. They would take some amber or coal from the church fire to light the fire at home, which in turn, served them for cooking the traditional Easter meals.

COUNTING THE DAYS

The Easter Bunny was introduced to America by the German settlers who arrived in the Pennsylvania Dutch country during the 1700s. According to the tradition, children would build brightly colored nests, often out of caps and bonnets, in secluded areas of their homes. If the children had been good, The Easter bunny would lay brightly colored eggs in the nest. As the tradition spread, the nest has become the manufactured, modern Easter basket, and the placing of the nest in a secluded area has become the tradition of hiding baskets

80 DAYS UNTIL SUMMER !

14 DAYS UNTIL CAMPING SEASON BEGINS

5 WORKING DAYS UNTIL MA RETIRES

Keep looking ON THE BRIGHT SIDE of things.

A little smile, a word of cheer,
A bit of love from someone near…

Love,

Ma