Hi, it’s
Christina –
Good morning. Oh what
a glorious Spring day here in Central New Jersey. This is what Spring should be
like, not too hot, not too cold, sunny with all the flowers and trees in bloom. I just love the Japanese cherry trees and the weeping cherry trees. The shock of pink against the lime green is so beautiful.I keep asking, but I still haven’t received one for
our front yard.
I totally forgot to
mention it, but yesterday marked the one year anniversary of this blog. What
originally started as a two week project, has turned into a daily “must” for
me. If I can’t blog first thing in the morning, my day just doesn’t seem to
ever get into sync. Over the past year, you have been with me through me
winning my first award for writing. You talked me down from a panic attack over
going into NYC to accept the award. You cheered with me when my daughter got
into her first choice college, and you cried with me when my son moved out and
my daughter left for college. You rooted me on during the insanity of
NaNoWriMo. We have celebrated every holiday together. You’ve sent prayers when
requested. You’ve laughed with me, and I’m sure a few times at me. All in all,
this has been one of the most wonderful years of my life, and in part, I have
all of you to thank for it. I appreciate all of you, and may God bless you as much
as you have me.
I did manage to get
some writing done yesterday, again mostly from a horizontal position. Yesterday
was better than Thursday, and so far today has been better than yesterday, so I’m
keeping my fingers crossed that tomorrow won’t be too terrible. It took me a
little over three hours, but I also managed to get the Easter baskets finished. (This photo is from a previous year.)
That still leaves, the
eggs – both dying the real ones and filling and hiding the plastic ones, the
letter from T.E.B., the cleaning, the baking, the cooking, and the grocery
shopping. My hubby’s not going to be happy, but I’m sending him to the grocery
store. We qualified for the free ham or turkey at out ShopRite, and it has to
be picked up by today, the dog is out of his morning chew sticks, and I want juice,
danishes, bagels and muffins for tomorrow’s breakfast. It’s less than ten
items, I think he can handle it.
I had a nice surprise yesterday. At
around quarter to six last night, my dog started fussing, so I thought he
needed to go out. I open the garage door, Colby goes rushing out, I follow at a
much slower pace; and there it was, a box, just sitting in my garage. I walk
over and check out the label. It's addressed to me. To the best of my
knowledge, I hadn't ordered anything. Curiosity piqued, I abandoned the dog,
who was perfectly secure by our invisible fence, and brought the box inside.
Dani asked, "What's that?"
"I don't know." I reply.
"Who's it addressed to?"
"Me."
"Who's it from?"
"I have no idea."
"So open it!"
"That's what I had planned on doing before you started asking
all your questions."
"Can I open it?"
"Sure, why not?"
I hand the box to my daughter, and with painstaking care, she
opens the box. After a few minutes, she gets the box opened, reaches inside and
pulls out a beautiful gold box, adorned with a royal purple ribbon and bow.
Thankfully, tucked inside the ribbon is a note.
It seems the Easter Bunny is a bit
of a detective, and he managed to track down my address so he could leave a box
of incredibly yummy chocolate truffles, as a thank you for editing his book.
It was a wonderful and totally unexpected
surprise, and I had never heard of the chocolatier. Being a confirmed and
admitted chocoholic, I thought I knew (and probably sampled) most of the
chocolates the world has to offer. Between friends traveling, me traveling, and
a brother-in-law who sets up candy store all over the world, I thought I had
them all covered. Happily, I was wrong, and missed a chocolatier who has been
around since the mid-17th century.
Bissinger’s started in Paris, sometime in the
early 1600s. Then in 1668, King Louis XIV, bestowed the title of “Confiseur
Imperial” on the Bissinger family for their confectionary excellence. Their
name and reputation grew throughout Europe, and in 1845 they found their way to
America, when Karl Bissinger settled in Cincinnati, Ohio. Over the past 169
years, Bissinger has received many Sofi awards, been featured in Food magazine,
and has caught the eye of numerous celebrities including Lauren Bacall and
Oprah.
See, this is what happens when you have a
historical romance writer do a blog. A tiny thing sparks my curiosity, and I
need to seek out its history. Hopefully I didn’t bore you too much. If you have
a chance to try Bissinger’s chocolate truffles, do so. So far I have tried an espresso
flavored one and a raspberry flavored one, and they were delicious. The only
complaint I have is, there was no key in the box, so I have no clue what the
flavors are before I try them.
Okay, enough already. I have tons to do today,
and one of them needs to be some work on FTQ. I hope y’all have a fantastic day,
and happy writing!
Your Last Challenge was:
Write a
story about Easter eggs…
I
love Easter eggs, all kinds of Easter eggs.
When
I was a little girl, I used to go over to my neighbor, and best friend, Nadia’s
house. Her and her family made Pisanke, aka Ukrainian Easter eggs. We would use
these strange sticks with a medal nail pushed through the end, we’d heat the
nail up with a candle flame, dip the hot nail into pure beeswax, then draw on
the raw egg. After we drew everything we wanted kept white, we would submerge
our egg in yellow dye. After the egg absorbed enough of the dye to be a deep
rich yellow, we would take it out, add beeswax to everything we wanted to stay
yellow, then dip the egg into the orange dye. We’d repeat the process with the
red, then purple and finally the black dye.
When
the egg came out of the final dye bath, it looked hideous. It had lumps of grey
beeswax all over it, and the only part of actual egg showing was black as
pitch. Ah, but that’s when Nadia’s mom would bring our eggs over to the stove.
She would warm a towel by rubbing it on the inside of a hot pan, then she would
take the hot towel and start to rub our egg with it. That’s when the magic
happened. As she rubbed, the ugly grey wax began to melt away, and all our
colored designs started to appear.
Right
from the start, Nadia’s eggs were beautiful, and mine were a disaster. My lines
were shaky and incomplete. I’d miss covering portions of the design in beeswax,
so the color scheme was off. I guess I just don’t have enough Ukrainian blood
in me.
I haven’t given up though, every few years I get out my Pisanke kit and
give it a whirl. Although they are better than when I was young, I could never
make the pieces of art that Nadia can, but that’s okay. I kinda like the silly
face eggs my daughters have been making the past few years.
Your Next Challenge is:
To spend tomorrow
enjoying your family, whether you celebrate Easter or not.
You have 24 hours. There is no right or wrong, just enjoy. Spelling and
punctuation don’t count, and NO ONE is allowed to criticize how someone else
chose to spend their day. Go
I just wanted to take a few minutes, while I was
having my first cup of coffee, to wish everyone (who celebrates) a Happy Easter!
I’m up really early today, because I ran out of steam and didn’t get everything
done. My hubby, bless his heart, colored eggs with Dani last night, cooked up
the sausage for the sausage and peppers I need to bring to my aunts, and he
straightened up the living room for me, and Dani baked the cupcakes. All I have
left to do is clean up the kitchen and help T.E.B. with his morning task.
PJ and Alex will be here by eight, and I would
really like to be out of the shower and dressed already by the time they get
here. The Easter egg hunt, baskets, and breakfast should take us to nine, which
leaves Dani and my husband forty-five minutes to shower and dress before we
have to leave for church.
Easter morning is fun around here, and if you’ve
read Corporate Blues, you already know my family’s tradition. It will be a
little strange though, with PJ not waking up here and Lys away at college, but
we are still determined to make it nice for Dani. 
Then when the race to see who can find all their
eggs first is over, they open their eggs, one at a time, alternating. Inside
each egg is either money, or a slip of paper saying “Pick a Gift”. After all
the eggs are opened, and all the gifts unwrapped, they open their Easter
baskets and make a bee line for their Cadbury egg – our traditional “Easter
Breakfast”, one which, every year, makes my husband wince and shake his head.
Then we scatter and start rushing around, like a bunch of chickens with a fox
in their hen house, to try to get to church on time. 
Some years we’re more successful than others. This
year we need to be on time, because with the way they redid the parking lot at
church, there aren’t as many spaces as we used to have, so our minister asked,
if possible, could we carpool. My mom will be pulling up at 9:45, so we had
better be ready. The one thing she doesn’t know is, she’ll be the one driving,
because I never got around to cleaning out our car yesterday. I’m safe though,
she would never think to kill me on such a holy day.
