Showing posts with label Easter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Easter. Show all posts

Saturday, April 5, 2014

E is for Easter Eggs














Wednesday, April 4, 2012

D is for Death


     Death is a facet of life we all must face.  It is apart of our ultimate destiny.  Even when death is imminent, no one knows the time of death.  Death comes unexpectedly.  It sneaks up and takes, snuffing life out like the flame of a candle.  We are born, live, and then die.  Being a fact of life doesn’t make death easier to understand.


    
      In a few short days another Easter day will be upon us.  Believers will celebrate the death and the resurrection of Je$us Chri$t.  What a powerful and comforting thing!  Je$us endured unbelievable torture and an excruciating very public death and was resurrected to illustrate his power and the everlasting life that awaits us all if only we believe.


      
       When my mom died, I didn’t understand the “whys” of death.  I didn’t understand that it was just part of the journey and not the end.  Even though I watched her struggles, pain, and unbelievable suffering from the cancer that ravaged her body I was selfish and wanted to keep her here.  I didn’t want her to leave me, ever.  Before her death I couldn’t imagine my life continuing without her because she was such an integral part of it.




       I watched as countless other family members suffered and then ended their journeys here on this earth.  I read my Bible and searched for understanding.  Very clearly Je$us states that if you ask, you will receive and if you seek, you will find and in the finding ultimately understand.  Why must there be suffering?  I believe the suffering humbles and forces us to seek and depend on G0d.  In the hindsight of watching my mom and dad in their suffering, I believe that suffering cleanses the soul and prepares that individual for the next step of their journey through the valleys of death to everlasting life.


       What about those who weren’t sick?  What about those who are young and vibrant and their lives are snuffed out without warning by an accident?  The only way I can reconcile my heart in these instances is to believe that their work here is through and their lives served their purpose.  It still doesn’t make their deaths seem fair or justified.  Somehow, someway I know their life served a purpose to the people that held them dear.  Their life taught a lesson of some sort and ultimately fate took its course.


        When I lost a baby when I was 5 months pregnant it was devastating.  How can we justify the cruelty of the snuffing out of the promise of life?   I just can’t.  In retrospect I can only imagine that baby helped me appreciate and value the lives of my babies that did survive even more.  Some heartless souls will argue that if a baby has never been born then their death shouldn’t bother a person near as much.  They have obviously never experienced that kind of loss. 


       I have always wondered what might have been if only that baby had lived.  I have never forgotten the promise that baby held.  For those months that it lived and grew within me, I bonded with it and dreamed of the day I would hold it in my arms.  Unfortunately, that day never came.  With each of my subsequent pregnancies I feared for the lives of my unborn children.  I never doubted that death could come unexpectedly again.   Death will come, and with faith the journey will continue until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.



Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Tasty Tuesday: Creamed Eggs on Toast



     When I was growing up my mom would always fix creamed eggs on toast for breakfast on Easter Sunday.  We would have our fun coloring eggs Saturday, and then she would make creamed eggs on toast for breakfast and deviled eggs for dinner as an effort to use them up.  It was a tradition that my Dad carried on after my mom was gone, and I carry on to this day. 







1 dozen hard boiled eggs
4 cups of thin white sauce consisting of:
    Butter, milk, and flour  
Salt and Pepper










Peel Easter eggs and place in bowl.  With a hand chopper or food processor chop eggs into little pieces then set aside.










In a large sauce pan melt 3 TBSP margarine.  Add 2 TBSP of flour and stir until blended.  Slowly add milk, stirring continuously until sauce is smooth.  








Add chopped eggs into sauce and blend well.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Serve creamed eggs on toast.









C is for Chocolate


      Is there really anything in the world that is better than chocolate ?  This time of year visions of chocolate bunnies hop about in my head.  Many will argue that marshmallow Peeps and jelly beans are just as wonderful, but it is the hollow chocolate bunny that is the star of the Easter Basket.


      Not to long ago I saw a picture on Face Book that perfectly represented the chocolate bunny’s plight this time of year.  It showed two chocolate bunnies together talking.  One complained that its butt hurt, and the other couldn’t hear.  Why you ask?  Some over eager soul had bitten off the one bunny’s butt, and someone else had nibbled off the other’s ears.  I personally thought this was hilarious.






      It got me thinking.  At no other time of year could you see people willingly eating a bunny’s a$$.  I mean gross, right?  You tell anyone they are eating the hind end out of an animal and they are most likely to spit it right out.  I would.  You would never have people begging to devour the chicken’s a$$hole or a cow’s crotch.


 
       Make those parts out of chocolate, and what one minute sounded nasty becomes doable in the next minute.  I am just as guilty as the next person.  I admit taking great delight in devouring countless chocolate bunnies over the years.  I always save their candy eyeballs for last!!  Every Easter we have all seen the Cadbury commercials where a lovely little bunny clucks away and then shoots Cadbury eggs out of its butt.  People are literally biting at the bit to gobble those things up.  It doesn’t matter if we seen it just come out of a bunny’s butt, it is chocolate and we are eating it!


       


       The sad thing is, even though I have contemplated all of this…Easter will soon come and I will be inhaling my chocolate bunny regardless.  What can I say?   I love chocolate until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.