~SPRING~

If you know me, you know how I get spring-fever, that it's my favorite time of year, and Easter, my favorite holiday. If you don't want to read some silly ramblings I suggest you skipp ahead now, because I'm going to tell you exactly why I love spring/Easter. (---Skip ahead now)

Easter is like Christmas, just when it is nicer outside. We still celebrate Christ's life, and the hope and salvation he offers, but we can celebrate it out in the sunshine (instead of trapped indoors like we are in prison). Easter, the time of hope, rebirth, new life, flowers, and sweet baby animals (instead of black-ice, frostbite, and blobby snowmen that melt and distort, when everything is dead). A time for new dresses and saddles (rather than wet parkas and muddy boots). We still get candy like Halloween and Christmas, but at Easter it is more often than not, chocolate (that's all we really want anyway). It is still acceptable to give gifts, but rather than being forced by society and commercialism, they can be gifts from the heart. People don't go into debt, and we can still enjoy the time together just as much. The food (a least in my family) is always just as good, but is enjoyed without somehow gaining those10lbs. I mean, don't get me wrong, Christmas is great! What else would get us through those dark oppressive mid-winter days? We need all the cheer we can get that time of year, we make the best of it, but to me, it's a place holder - a pacifier, until the real season for celebrating comes along. I appreciate winter, and Christmas, but mostly because those dark cold days make spring that much brighter and warmer.

(---Begin reading here) I decided to make some little Easter treats to take to some friends (visiting teaching too). I sprouted wheat in paper cups and put a plastic egg with an Easter scripture and some chocolates inside. They came out great so I made a few to place around our apartment too. The cats loved it, they munched on the grass while I munched the chocolate.

In the spring I always love it when the violets come out, they are one of the first tings to bloom here, and they remind me so much of Nan and when we lived with her. I have some violets that I got from Aunt Judy's yard growing in a pot and put a few blooms in one of Nan's little vases to help ward off the last of my S.A.D. (seasonal affective disorder/winter blues) during the rainy spring days. I was surprised how much it helped.