Easter Fun

When I think back on how my day unfolded my mind is filled with memories of:

• sunshine
• forsythia and daffodils
• chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate
• Easter dinner

And here's a sneak peak of what we ate for dessert.  I'm going to share the recipe in another post when I have time to write it up, but all I can say is this cake has a great story and tastes delicious.

Stay tuned!

Happy Easter

May God bless you at Easter,
and keep you all year through.

May God give you all the faith you need,

to make your dreams come true.

May His love and wisdom always help,

to guide you on your way.

May His light shine down upon you now,

to bless your Easter Day.


an old Irish Easter Blessing - author unknown

Happy Easter to all my bloggy friends!

A Blustery Day in Oakville

With a free afternoon yesterday it seemed like the perfect time to catch up with a girlfriend.  We went to Oakville, a quaint historic town on the shore of Lake Ontario, and drove around looking at the beautiful old houses and then went for a walk along the waterfront.


One of the houses had the most magnificent display of scillia.  While we were there taking pictures, several other cars also stopped to admire the flowers.

We walked around the historic Erchless Estate (c. 1858), which was the home of Colonel Chisholm who founded Oakville.  The house is now a musuem which I really need to visit when it is open as I've never been inside.  I love the position of prominence the house has on a hill overlooking the harbour and lake.  Can you imagine what a view you would get from the widow's walk up on top.

The gardens were just starting to spring to life and mostly had scillia, a few daffodils, and two brave tulips.

  

The air was cold and the wind was whipping the water up into a frenzy of splashing, crashing wave action.

The seagulls were enjoying the challenge of staying on the pier,

and I was enjoying the challenge of capturing pictures of waves mid-crash.

The colours were captivating with the gray skies and water, the red lighthouse, and yellow mooring posts on the pier.  

The colours have been altered in the picture above using Picnik, an on-line photo-editing programme, but I'm kind of liking the vintage look.  What about you - do you prefer the natural colours or the aged look?

Pysanky Easter Eggs

You might be under the impression that I'm Ukrainian, what with me showing you all these Ukrainian Easter eggs and all.  However, that would be incorrect - I'm really an Anglo-European dog's breakfast blend who just happens to like pysanky or Ukrainian Easter Eggs.


This past weekend I had the opportunity to go to an Easter fair with my parents at a church out in the country called St. Elias the Prophet.  Well, let's just say it made me want to be Ukrainian.


There were gorgeous hand-painted pysanky eggs.  If you want to see some pysanky made by an amateur with a shaky hand look here, but if you want to see what the pros make, check these out:

The eggs were decorated with horses, roosters, deer, oak leaves, crosses, stars, wheat, rakes and other symbols all with special meaning to the Ukrainian people.

I loved that there was a handout with an explanation about the meaning behind the decorations used on the eggs.  I took a picture of a part of the sheet explaining about the leaves and animals.

I didn't know that the style of decorations used on the pysanky varied from region to region in the Ukraine.  This is just a small sample of the regions they displayed.

Not only were there pysanky eggs at the Easter fair, but there were also beeswax candles, and handmade chocolates, and embroidery, 

and yummy Easter breads - some with braided crosses on top, some that had been baked in cans, and some that had been baked in special lamb-shaped molds.

After surveying all the goodies we bought some bread, some chocolate, and a couple of the pysanky.  With the huge selection  it was very difficult to decide which ones to choose. 

I finally chose these two beauties.

Yep it's definitely enough to make me want to be Ukrainian.  

Linked to Mosaic Monday at Little Red House

The Eggs and I

Ever year at Easter I put out the Pysanky eggs that we made several years ago.  I thought it was time to have a little photo-shoot so I tried some different ways of displaying them.  I'm not sure I've hit on the arrangement that seems just right to me, but I'll keep playing around with them.

   

And a couple of close-ups of eggs in the egg-shaped bowls from the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Easter Eggs are coming in black with neon turquoise and green now.  Strange, isn't it?

You can see how I displayed them last Easter in my post here.



Linked to Friday Unfolded at Stuff and Nonsense
Springtime Craft Linky Party at Decor to Adore
Sister Saturday Easter Link-up at At the Picket Fence

Easter Weekend

We had a very quiet Easter weekend.  

Lots of time to enjoy the lovely warm spring weather,

watch our seedlings grow,

and eat lots of these.

Did the Easter bunny visit anyone else?

Easter Eggs

We have quite a collection of pysanky, or Ukranian Easter eggs, that we have made over the years.  

  I love them! 

I love the colours, the patterns, and the fact that they don't look terrible given that they are actually pretty difficult to make.

     (full disclosure - the light blue egg on the right is a painted wooden egg, not a pysanky)

May your heart and home be blessed this Easter.

Linked to Inspired by: Easter at The Inspired Room
I'm Lovin' It Fridays at Tidy Mom
Strut Your Stuff - Easter and Spring at Somewhat Simple
Easter Mantel + Link Party at Centsational Girl