Easter 2016

Our Easter was very low key this year. Normally I go to church on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the vigil Easter Saturday... well with doctor appointments in Wilmington (yay for normal Thyroid levels!), work schedules and more I only made it to the Vigil on Saturday (with my husband in tow). Our mass this year was a long one, two hours and forty minutes, with five baptisms and thirteen confirmations! Pretty impressive. Saturday I ran around like crazy so Easter Sunday we could have a low key day just the two of us.

In the morning we made our pisanki and at first I panicked because our dye wasn't sticking to the eggs! That had never happened to me before... turns out they were too cold. A quick hot water bath and a little time made things much better. 

We also tried "double dying" our eggs this year. First you dye the egg, let it dry, then do the beeswax, then dye it again and after it dries you pick off or melt off the wax and get a two toned egg... we picked off the wax and it looked ok! The second and third ones in from the left on the top row, and the first ones in rows two and three on the left were all double dyed.

I also made a special blue egg for our Bean. Unfortunately his egg was one of the ones the wax did not stick too since it was too cold, but it held enough to dye once so it is a white and blue egg. My mom made a similar baby girl egg when she was pregnant with me in 1987 so I wanted to continue the tradition a bit.

Overall we had a nice, quiet day. It rained for nearly the entire day, so staying on the couch and watching tv was ok. We also had a huge Easter lunch... I made pierogies, kielbasa, string bean casserole and ham and it was all delicious. So much so that we ate it a few hours later that night for dinner.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend and a Happy Easter!

Easter

Like most of our holidays lately, Ryan and I had a quiet Easter at home. Even though Ryan was not in cycle, he was naturally on the range, so travelling with our work schedules wasn't really an option. I am still trying to earn back leave time from my surgery in January! Bein sick has not been my friend. As you may remember, recently I wrote I mentioned I was getting an endoscopy done. Fortunately my biopsies were all negative, no bacteria or cancer or anything like that. I did have some gastritis and duodenitis as well as some severe bile reflux. Not acid, bile. Ugh. So I am on a new medication that I have to take three times a day to see if it helps prevent my attacks and general nausea. Naturally a side effect of the medicine is nausea, so I have had some yucky moments again, but I am trying to go a few weeks to see if it truly helps. No idea what my options are beyond this though!

 

Anyway, Easter. I went to Holy Thursday mass at the church on base by myself (as Ryan is Baptist this is a normal thing for us! The Triduum is pretty uber Catholic). Good Friday I sadly had to work and could not attend mass. Ryan and I went out for seafood that evening and ended up having some really good conversations. Saturday we scrambled like crazy to get things done so Easter Sunday we wouldn't have to do chores. We cleaned the house top to bottom, discovered a leak under our kitchen sink and repaired it, did laundry and grocery shopping all in time for the Easter Vigil mass that evening. The vigil is hands down my favorite mass of the year. Yes, it is long mass and my husband is a saint for putting up with me to go! We had seven people baptised, four convert from other branches of Christianity and a total of thirteen people confirmed. I am always teary during that part! It is a beautiful thing.

 

We got home that evening and made our pisanki. Ryan is getting to be quite good aafter being with me all these years! His are on the left and mine are on the right.

 

Our pisanki/pisanky (depending on your spelling!)

We were up pretty late but still didn't sleep in too much Easter Sunday. We had a nice lazy day of watching movies and opening the Easter basket my mom sent us. After awhile it got too lazy for Ryan and we decided to go out and play tennis. It was my first time doing anything particularly strenuous (aside from hiking or walking the dog) since I got sick back in October. I did alright but man am I out of shape! After a few hours we came home and I made the pierogies I had been saving for a special occassion. They have sat in the freezer from our last trip to New Jersey and are the made from scratch pierogies my Babci made.... so they are uber special! We had that with her babka bread that I also unfroze as well as a ring of kielbasa Ryan grilled for us.

 

Our neighbors also shared a special Easter treat with us. He found some baby bunnies abandoned on his job site and did not want to leave them. They all waited for the mother to come back but there was no sign of her. He brought them home for the evening and they decided to feed them and care for them for the evening until they could bring them to a wildlife shelter the next day. What that meant for us was that we were able to cuddle some furry little baby bunnies who had barely opened their eyes!

 

They were so cute and tiny and they made the tiniest little jumps. They had four of them total and I loved being able to snuggle them, even though it was pretty brief. A friend of mine recommended a good place to take them and the next day our neighbors dropped them off.

 

Monday we went back to work but that evening my brother came to visit us for our Spring Break! The Dup is in heaven, Uncle Stefan is her best buddy, and I am pretty psyched my baby brother is here for the week. Even though I work during the day we have been having some pretty awesome adventures at night and I hope we can get a beach day in before he goes. I hope you all had a Happy Easter and warmer weather is officially headed your way.

Slacking

I have been severely slacking on my blog lately. Sometimes I think, I should really blog about this... but then I don't. I have had more free time since the show ended, but I have been spending it with Ryan basically. And working. And back in the gym :P. I feel my blog suffering, I know I have lost readers (half my trip entries didn't even get a single comment) and I am not sure where to go from here really.

Do I want to keep this blog about me? Just something I enjoy, people read and interact on, and family can see a bit more of what we are up to? Or do I want to broaden my horizons... make it more about readership or even profit? Reviews and give aways and link ups... oh my! I honestly just don't know.

I have a lot on my mind at the moment and most of it really is not blogworthy. Ryan has een submitting his package for an SDA (or b-billet of sorts) to hopefully better his chances of picking up/staying in. He wants to be a security forces instructor but if that doesn't pan out then he will try for recruiting duty. Things keep getting shuffld and pushed around so we really have no idea what will happen, they won't even look at things until May. Hurry up and wait once again.

I am applying for a higher position within the library, a level two position that is full time in reference. As much as I love working in tech services the extra money of going up a level and to full time will really help us out. I have my interview Tuesday, so fingers crossed!

At the moment I am working circulation for the weekend... Easter weekend. I am pretty bummed to be working Easter, full hours, but they have been so accomodating with my schedule (between our trip, weddings and other things) I wouldn't dare complain. Easter is a special time for me (being Catholic and all) so I am trying to do everything I can while still working. Pisanki were made last night, mass is still being attended, and tons of smidgens are being eaten. It's a start right?

 

Ryan's pisanki are the four in the top row, mine are the five on the bottom row.

For all of you still around, thanks for sticking with me. I don't want to abandon my blog, four years of my life have gone into this thing, but I hope I will invigorate it a bit more in the near future.

Stay tuned my friends.

And Happy Easter.

Making Pisanky

We have made pisanky every year of my life. And my mother has. And my Babci. It is an important family Easter tradition that I'm so excited to do in my own home and pass on to my own family some day.  We decorate the eggs with beeswax and then dye them. My babci's are incredible and I hope one day mine are that great! 

 

 

 

 

 

Ryan made some too but he is impossible to get to pose for a picture!

Happy Easter to you and your families. 

(PS - this is my first time blogging from my phone so excuse any layout issues!)