Today is Earth Day, a day our family holds in special regard--in a tongue in cheek way.

You see, today is the only day of the year that Jiminy Cricket appears at Walt Disney World* in costume. We discovered that by accident on a family vacation about ten years ago. It has become a novel attraction if we happen to be there on this day ever since.

I dug out a pin and sticker from 2 Earth Day's of yore. The pin shows CFLs, saving water, and using bikes as ways we can be more environmentally minded, or as Jiminy says, Environmentality.

His sticker caption reads, "Every Little Bit Makes a Big Difference." 

That slogan reminded me of a German saying my grandmother used to quote, "Ya ya, every little bit helps said the frog as he peed into the Rhine" (River). She would say it in German, but that was the gist of the translation.

It was funny because it contrasted the sincerity of the frog's belief with the absurdity of the frog's actual contribution of his liquid making a difference to the Rhine River.

Yet this is the message of some environmentalists and global warming preachers. That by changing a light bulb or bringing your own cloth grocery bag to the store, that we can save the planet.

Now, don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things I think we should be doing better. We waste a lot in this country, and as a frugal person, I hate waste of any kind. But I think we only truly believe what we really put into action.

Do people's actions reflect their beliefs? Some people are trying to "green" up their lives. Others are not. Some people make no attempt to be environmentally friendly; some only talk a good line.

I caught part of Vicki McKenna's radio program today. It was all about Earth Day and Global Warming. Listen to her podcast for a sobering look at where all this Global Warming legislation is leading. (Tuesday Hour Two Part Two 4-22-08)

On a lighter note, she discussed an email that has been circulating that compares Al Gore's home to President Bush's Texas ranch. (I received a similar one last month but the photo of Al's house was not the same.)

The perception is that Al Gore is the environment's friend, while George Bush is the environment's enemy.  

So how do the two compare?

According to the Snopes Urban Legend site, the email is basically true: Al's house does use 12 times the amount of electricity as the average new American house. (Their mansion is only 4 times the size of the average new home.)

The Gore's say that they compensate for that in that they pay an additional $432 on their electric bills to get this power from Green sources. Their home's excessive energy use follows the same incongruity of the Gore's Nobel Peace Prize celebration dinner featuring foods flown in from all over the world.

So who really has Environmentality?

UPDATE: You really cannot make this stuff up. Take a look at Cindy Kilkenny's  Heh Heh. Al Gore caught faking evidence 

*Walt Disney World does use a number of environmentally friendly practices. Their mosquito control, for example, utilizes swallow birds and I think bats to consume the numerous pests.

Links: 4th Annual Weed Out, May 3rd, Mary Knoll Park

Kinsey Park Clean Up and Pier

Today is the first day of spring! Finally!

Even with an ice bag on his head, he can't bring down his spring fever.

Ironic that we are expecting more snow tomorrow, but I think this little guy's days are numbered just the same.

After all, daylight hours are growing, snowbanks are retreating, and more birds are singing. Life is good.

I snapped this picture in Trader Joe's parking lot on a 20 degree day about 2 weeks ago.

When I saw this convertible with its top down I wondered if he had spring fever that badly or was his top just stuck in the down position?

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Links: Brookfield7, Betterbrookfield,  Vicki Mckenna 

Poor Saint Patrick. Almost everything we associate with the holiday today has little to do with the real Saint Patrick.

Saint Patrick's Day decorations and themes often consist of  leprechauns, 4-leaf clovers for luck, pots of gold, green snakes, and of course, green beer. Did I mention green beer?

None of these things have anything to do with Saint Patrick, who was a real man born in the 4th century.

Patrick was born in the area of Britain we now call Wales, somewhere around 372-397 AD.  Although he was raised in a Christian home, he himself was not yet a Christian. Kidnapped by Irish raiders as a teen, he was taken to Ireland as a slave for 6 years.*

"Patrick worked as a herdsman, remaining a captive for six years. He writes that his faith grew in captivity [through teachings and scripture he memorized as a child], and that he prayed daily.  After six years he heard a voice telling him that he would soon go home, and then that his ship was ready. Fleeing his master, he traveled to a port, two hundred miles away he says, where he found a ship and, after various adventures, returned home to his family, now in his early twenties.^[11] "

Feeling the call to return to Ireland to convert the Druids, Patrick studied the Bible. It is said however that he was not formally educated*--at least not in the traditional way of priests. He did not let this stop him from returning to Ireland.

"Patrick was quite successful at winning converts. And this fact upset the Celtic Druids. Patrick was arrested several times, but escaped each time." 

"They baptized many thousands, probably tens of thousands. Patrick's mission planted about 700 churches. Within his lifetime, 30 to 40 (or more) of Ireland's 150 tribes became substantially Christian." (The Celtic Way of Evangelism, page 23)

He preached salvation through faith in Christ and "fought against the start of Pelagianism, the denial of original sin and affirmation of man's ability to be righteous by the exercise of free will."*

"He died in Ireland in approximately 461 AD."* on March 17th. 

See, not a green beer in the whole story!

As for the other symbols:

...He also is said to have given a sermon from a hilltop that drove all the snakes from Ireland. Of course, no snakes were ever native to Ireland, and some people think this is a metaphor for the conversion of the pagans. Though originally a Catholic holy day, St. Patrick's Day has evolved into more of a secular holiday.

One traditional icon of the day is the shamrock. And this stems from a more bona fide Irish tale that tells how Patrick used the three-leafed shamrock to explain the Trinity. He used it in his sermons to represent how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit could all exist as separate elements of the same entity. His followers adopted the custom of wearing a shamrock on his feast day.

The shamrock representing the trinity always made sense to me. Not too surprising, even that got hijacked into a 4-leaf clover symbolizing LUCK. (Luck is not a Christian symbol in that it bypasses God's providence.) 

It is rather sad that a day honoring a great Christian missionary like Saint Patrick, who preached the Gospel of Christ so faithfully, has evolved into a day of drunkenness. But now at least you know a little more about the real St. Patrick. 

Links: Brookfield7, Betterbrookfield,  Vicki Mckenna 

I am not making this up. Today is Middle Name Pride Day.  

Some people have very unusual middle names. Sometimes they are rarely used.

Sometimes middle names are always used, as in George Washington Carver, Sara Jessica Parker, or Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Middle names can be in honor of a family member, a famous person, family name, or just another name--often one loved by one parent but not the other. A very popular middle name for men over 50 is John. (True in our family).

Often you never hear someone's middle name until some formal ceremony. The funniest middle name at our high school graduation was Gascoigne. Janet Gascoigne (- - - - -). None of us had ever heard it used before, so there was a bit of a titter in the crowd. 

Mine, by the way, is Kolleen, with a K, which is another thing people do with names--spell them differently. Colleen means girl and is of Gaelic or Celtic origin. Kolleen following Kyle, also of Gaelic or Celtic origin, would make you think I was Irish or Scots, but no.

It is rather enjoyable to look up the history and meanings of names.  I had always heard that Kyle meant church or church yard, so I guess the two together means Church Yard Girl. Maybe I should be on the landscape committee at church?

Enjoy the day!

Links: Betterbrookfield,  Vicki Mckenna 

When my son was young, we dyed eggs for Easter. Oh my, what chaos! But he had so much fun, how could I say no? My sister would come over and join in the festivities (and mess). Our favorite dyes were those oily swirl type paints.

Some of the eggs turned out so pretty, it was a real shame to destroy and eat them later. So we decided to dye either hollowed out real eggs or use the plastic type that split apart--that allowed us to keep them indefinitely.

Martha Stewart online has some great egg decorating ideas this month.

I decided that an egg tree would be the perfect place to display our works of art. The tree was easy to make. All I did was go into my yard and prune off a young scrubby tree. I think I use part of a dogwood bush. A young buckthorn would also work well. (Heaven knows there are plenty of those around!) You can purchase ready made trees too.

After you trim the little tree to a pleasing shape, spray with white spray paint and let dry. You will want to leave the lower trunk a little longer so it can fit into your "stand". (The trunk might need a little whittling to fit it into the stand.)

For the stand, I just used a plastic tub, like the kind Cedar-Crest ice cream comes in. I also took a short piece of metal conduit (make sure your tree trunk fits into it, but any tubular material would work: plastic, PVC, round toothbrush case, etc.) and held it perpendicular in the center of the tub and then poured some mortar mix in around it. I then let it cure overnight. Plaster of Paris would work too, I think.

I put the tree into the conduit tube in the stand (a few Popsicle sticks can take up the extra space and keep the tree straight.) 

The stand goes in a basket with some "grass" on top. I used some natural packing material that came in a food gift basket. You could use that shredded crinkle paper you get from a craft store too. If you do not have a basket, you could use a large circle of pretty fabric and gather it over the whole base and tie with a ribbon or even use wrapping paper.

My tree stand in the basket then goes onto a serving platter that I put more of that "grass" in.

Pick out the prettiest eggs you dyed and glue a narrow ribbon loop on top. I used the blow hole to poke the ribbon ends into and Tacky glue. A small silk flower can cover the hole if it got too large.

You may want to leave some eggs with longer, separate ribbons so you can tie them onto the branches that a loop won't slip over.

Now you are ready to decorate the tree! 

If the eggs are plastic, heat up a metal skewer or nail  in a candle (you can use a pliers to hold the nail so you don't get burned) and melt a hole in the end.  I then made a ribbon loop and knotted it through a bead so I could slip it through the hole to hang.

Here are some countdown ideas:

We hung the real eggs on the tree, but I left 1 to 2 dozen of the plastic ones for the basket top and serving platter.

I placed inside each plastic egg a jelly bean, malted milk ball egg, etc. and a Bible verse pertaining to Easter. If you were really ambitious, you could add a number to the egg, 1-24 and then put the Bible verses inside in chronological order: verses about needing a Savior, Palm Sunday, the arrest, Good Friday, and finally the resurrection. (I never got my act that together.)

I wrote the verses onto card stock and then cut with a pinking sheers. These days there are really fun scissors available--I'm sure children would enjoy making the verse strips. We put a sticker on each strip, but a rubber stamp would work too. You could use the computer and a printer to do this too.

Each day, the child picks an egg, reads the verse (we put the verse back in the egg), eats the treat, and hangs the egg on the tree!

By the time it is Easter, the whole tree is bedecked.

If you have more than one child participating, the eggs could be separated and stored in maybe half of one of those prettier white foam cartons or clear cartons. Or one child maybe has all blue and green eggs, the other pink and yellow, or one has the odd numbers, one the even. You will sort it out.  

Some people place something pertaining to Easter or the verse in each egg if they don't want to use candy: i.e. A cotton ball for Isaiah 1:18 Though you sins be as scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they be red like crimson, They shall be as wool. Other items might be a heavy horseshoe type nail, a small lamb, a thorn, a small palm branch etc. I believe you can purchase a dozen of these eggs with the small item in them at Family Christian Stores .  

 





You can display your treasures in a basket too.

Brown eggs can be quite interesting.

So let the egg-citement begin!

(Sorry, I couldn't resist.) 

I store the bare tree upside down from a basement rafter when not in use--just twist a long wire loop around the trunk and hang from a nail.

Links: Betterbrookfield,  Vicki Mckenna 

Today is February 29th, a leap year. My son mentioned a classmate of his told him he had a leap year birthday. Poor kid, in actual Feb. 29th birthdays, today is this young man's 5th birthday. It could have been worse though. Had he been born a century earlier, he would have had only 4 actual Feb. 29th birthdays. How would that be possible for a 20 year old? Ask Pope Gregory.

Back in Julius Caesars day--45 BC--the concept of adding a day to the 365 day calendar every 4 years was introduced. It was known that an actual year was almost 1/4 day longer than 365 day year. So to compensate, Caesar added the leap year day to his Julian Calendar. This worked for a while.

Pope Gregory, in the 16th century, recognized that Julius' correction was not enough. "Eventually Easter would fall on Christmas Day unless the system was refined. The 'Gregorian Calendar,' still in use today, fine-tunes the leap year calculation by stipulating that century years (e.g. years ending in "00"), which would normally qualify as leap years, are an exception to the general rule and will have only 365 days."* But this still needed a little more adjusting.

If a century year is evenly divisible by 400, then it will have the extra leap year day. It is an exception to the exception and that is why the classmate is "5" today instead of "4"!

The amount of error in our Gregorian calendar is about 27 seconds (1 day every 3,236 years). I think we are safe for a while! 

Links: Betterbrookfield,  Vicki Mckenna