Dying Easter Eggs on Good Friday

Well, Holy Week was a long one this year! Holidays always seem to come either too quick or too slow!

Thankfully, we were allowed to leave a bit early on Friday from work and I went to pick up John from my parents' house. We had planned on dying Easter Eggs with John. What we didn't think about was how young he was and how little of an attention span he has. He did manage to sit with me for a while.

Most of the time though, he ended up running around between my parents' kitchen and living room with a brush and an egg beater. We had taken out the egg beater to help with the dying. I'm not quite sure what was up with the hair brush.

Despite John's attention spand, my sister and I had one heck of a good time dying eggs. We did a fantastic job if I do say so myself. Then, on Easter Sunday, she used the eggs to make deviled eggs. Kind of ironic, huh?



One last little thing. The box of eggs had a Psalm in it. It's actually one of my favorites and the one that we used for our wedding Mass.



The Hunger Games

After all the Hoopla over The Hunger Games, I finally gave in and went to Costco on Sunday evening to buy the book (for $7.49! Great price). I'm glad I did. I found it to be a quick read!

 It is a really interesting story about what could be mixed with what has been. Basically, North America is one big country ruled by a Capital in the Rockies. There are twelve other districts (state like things) that all are connected to the Capital. Years ago, the districts along with a 13th which was wiped out, rose against the Capital and lost. In retribution, each district offers up two children, a boy and a girl, each year to compete in "The Hunger Games" which are a fight to the death.

We have Katniss who steps up to the plate for her sister who was chosen at random to participate in the games. She is paired with Peetra, a baker's son who once saved her life and whom she feels indebted to. They act as a pair as they train for the games and so on. Peetra announces that he has had a longtime crush on her, and they are presented as star-crossed lovers.

The story then progresses to the actual games. Half of the kids are killed in the first day, while others remain. Katniss pairs up with a young girl named Rue, only to have Rue killed by another shortly afterwords. Although, I think the intent here was to pull on your heartstrings, it really didn't get to me too much since their relationship was bearly developed, but I guess you don't get too close over a day or so.

Meanwhile, Peetra is doing his thing and by his actions, we learn that he's doing everything he can to keep Katniss alive. I don't think he really thought he'd get too far and was doing the best he could to sacrifice himself for her. However, she is so mistrusting, that she never really gives her heart to him.
Anyway, to amp up the story, it is announced that if the two people remaining are from the same district, they will win as a team. Katniss searches for Peetra who is near death. She's able to help him and with the help from team sponsors interested in their "romance" and her own ingenuity, she's able to save him. Finally, it comes down to them and the brutalist competitor. A twist is that wolves that look quite like the dead contenders are also after the three of them. That was for me about the freakiest part of the whole thing.

Well, Katniss with the help of Peetra is able to throw their competition to the wolves and eventually ends his life only to end his suffering. Then, the twist is thrown out and there can only be one survivor. Betting that the Capital would rather have one than two survivors, they both attempt suicide, to be stopped in time.

They are taken back and cleaned up. Katniss learns that her action of attempting suicide left a bad taste in the mouths of Capital authorities and she better play up the act of a desperate teen in love. She does pretty well of it, but at the end, reveals to Peetra that some of it has been an act on her part as the story ends.

I was worried that as a mother and a sensitive person, this would be too much for me to handle. While the deaths are quite gruesome, I was able to get through it pretty well, mostly because it was fiction.
There was one thing that did hit home. My grandfather and his brother went to war back during WWII at an age not much older than these kids. While my grandfather was one of the lucky ones, his brother Laurel did not fare well. He was on Guadalcanal and ended up being one of two survivors in his army unit. It hit him pretty hard and he was never quite sane again. I know that the Iraq War was one of the writers inspirations and that hit pretty close to home.

Overall, I wasn't too impressed by Katriss. While I liked the story and hope to read the next two, the heroine did not have the likability that I really needed to root hard for her. In fact, I quite liked the young man better and kind of wanted to hit her upside the head. Duh, the guy really does care for you and you care for him. Plus, it's in your best interest to be in love. Just take the plunge already. I hate star crossed lovers. It really isn't that hard when you find the right one.

Palm Sunday Happenings

The King of glory comes, the nation rejoices.
Open the gates before him, lift up your voices.

It was a LONG Mass and much harder to get into the church today. You'd think they were giving out salvation or something:) We did our typical 11:30 AM Mass. John was fairly well behaved and Tim had to take him out the the Narthex only once during the year long Gospel. Okay, it was really twenty minutes, but it seems longer to the wee ones. Kudos to Father for not saying a homily after this one.

I really do love Palm Sunday. I love the imagry of it all. John, however, enjoyed the palms. When Tim took him out for a break, he ended up finding the table of palms and trying to grab some and tried to pass them out to the other little kids in the Narthex. When they came back, John tried to grab a handful of palms from the people behind us. He also may have teethed on his palm. Ah well, Jesus DOES love the little children. The people behind us ended up complimenting us on how well behaved our son was. Ha!

Someone did call our son Jack today, and I immediately corrected them with John. I guess after thirty years of correcting people who call me Kathy has rubbed off.

I had read about some Easter Hoppings downtown, and we decided to check them out.

I did forget three things 1) I hate crowds. 2) I hate waiting. 3) John could care less if he didn't see the Easter Bunny. So we got off the beaten track and made a day of it. First stop, fire truck. John looks like a natural. Could this possibly be a career choice?

Then, we visited the Landmark Church, home of the Tinley Park Historical Society. I love learning about history, especially local history. At the Society, we saw an old aerial view of Tinley and two of the schools that Tim attended as a child were on it as they appeared in the late 50s. It was something to realize that this was what downtown looked like a few years later when my mom attended the nearby Catholic grade school a few blocks away. There was also the bell from the first school in the distict I attended as a child. Pretty darn cool.
I've been dying to see the Historical Society, and although it was small, it was sure worth it!

Best of all for John is that in the basement of the Landmark Church was a coloring station and Bunny Buckets! Tim and I colored, trying to get John interested, but he wasn't quite ready. I did make a bunny mask for him while he had a ball, literally.

We also visited the Vogt Visual Arts Center where they had some fantastic art work displayed. I honestly would have bought something if I had a spare couple hundred, which is amazing as art doesn't do much for me. But all the stuff there was so real and beautiful. I honestly liked it all, especially a scene of downtown Chicago in the fall which was breathtaking. So glad I had the chance to see it.

 

We rounded up our trip downtown with a late lunch at an eatery downtown. We had two great experiences with our rehearsal dinner and John's after baptism luncheon at this place. Today, not so great. The waitress sat us at a booth much too small for us and got mad that we got up and sat at an empty table. She made a big deal of us needing a high chair, saying it would be in the way, although it wasn't any more in the way than any other one there. Then, since milk isn't included in the kid's meal we bought John, but pop is, we were charged for it and John hardly drank it. She only refilled our drinks once, was late bringing the bill and bringing it back and served more attitude than food. We ordered appetizers and they got cold fast. The only saving grace was a delicious antipasta salad.What a disappointment!
John thought so too.

All in all, it was another great weekend with my boys. In this life, we have to look for the blessings of every day. Today, I was blessed to spend time with my guys, attend a beautiful Mass and got to explore our beautiful downtown.



He conquered sin and death. He truly has risen,
And He will share with us His heavenly vision.