Happy Easter, to all those who celebrate!

Just wanted to write a quick note to wish all my friends who celebrate Easter a very happy one! I hope the Easter Bunny brought you just what you wanted in the basket. OK, I realize that is probably not what the true believers think of when it is brought up, but that is what Easter has become. Rather than the time when Jesus was raised from the dead after three days in the tomb, the holiday has turned into a time for children to find hidden eggs, get baskets of candy and other goodies from the "Easter Bunny" as well as a time for family to gather and eat a huge ham dinner together.

The eggs are from the pagan Sabbath of Ostara. They symbolize renewing life. Christians took over the pagans' sabbats to make it easier to force the population to convert to their new religion. Same with Samhain (Halloween), Yule (Christmas ~ it isn't possible that Christ was a Capricorn, he had to have born in the spring) and so many more. I won't make this into a paper on the true holidays, just a quick look at where it came from.

Until later! We'll catch you!

Hope your Valentines' Day was a good one!

Randy came home from work yesterday with a smile on his face and told me to close my eyes for a minute. Hmmm .... OK, I did this and when I looked up, here was the surprise waiting for me.

We have been together my entire adult life and have known each other even longer. We studied chemistry together in high school and eventually, that chemistry united and here we are -- married almost 26 years and together nearly 30 and the parents of two wonderful adult children. No, I won't lie and say it's always been a bowl of cherries. We've had our UPS and downs like any other couple, but I don't believe in throwing away something just because it isn't perfect. I believe just working harder will help. I took those vows to "love, honor and cherish til death do us part" seriously and intend to do just that.

Even without the flowers and teddy bear, he shows me he loves me and that he's in this for the long run and we're together forever. Randy, I do love you!

A Post~Christmas Gift

The UPS guy was just here and dropped off a little late gift. It was scheduled to be here yesterday, promised to be here yesterday, but arrived today. Ah well, we're all use to these delivery companies NOT living up to promised delivery dates. I'm amazed it arrived this soon. If it were Fed EX, I'd still be waiting.

So what is my gift? I'm typing on it now ~ a purple keyboard for my Surface 2 tablet!! Purple is my favorite color, so I had to have this one. I don't mind using the built in, on screen touch keyboard, but this is so much easier on me. I was trained to type on a real, honest-to-goodness typewriter back in the Stone Age, not to keyboard like people are taught today. When I was working as a legal secretary, I could type and take shorthand (not even taught anymore since digital voice recorders were invented). I still used shorthand when I was working as a reporter at court because in the State of Penna., electronic recording devices and cameras aren't allowed in court. Without shorthand, I wouldn't have been able to get the proceedings almost word-for-word.

This tablet is my favorite gift for Christmas. For Yule, my favorite is a gorgeous sterling silver pentacle necklace with a ruby at the tip of each point in the star. I love having two holidays to celebrate every December! Anyone else here celebrate Yule?

G

Christmas Eve

This year is different for us. Both of our children are adults and have decided to open presents tonight, rather than getting up at our usual 5 a.m. tomorrow. We're going to my aunt's house to celebrate with my family. Sadly, Randy's brother & his wife have decided they are too good for us & refuse to even let us see our niece. All our gifts to her are thrown away. The worst part, the brother is my son's godfather. They can't even be bothered to email them a happy birthday. They told my kids when they were 10 & 12 that they were disowning them. Nice, huh?

My Brother's girlfriend has a young daughter and she has already started calling us Aunt Gretchen and Uncle Randy and our kids are her cousins. We aren't related "yet", but she's allowed to stay with us and we take her places. I so love that little girl!!

Anyhow, I'm looking at even more surgery. The stitches were removed yesterday from my last one 2 weeks ago. Now, my left shoulder is torn and needs repaired. I'm also looking at nerve torture tests in 2 weeks, then the possibility f knee surgery.

Randy was being super sweet and bought me a Surface 2 tablet to make it easier on me to play games, blog & surf the net when I'm attached to an IV. I also have Kindle software downloaded with almost 300 books on it. He let me have it early since I've spent half of the past three weeks in hospitals or doctors' offices or driving to one or the other.

I'll upload photos from the gift opening soon.

To my Christian friends, I hope your Christmas is a truly wonderful one, filled with lots of love and family.


G

Have a Blessed Samhain == AKA Happy Halloween!!!

Today is the one day of the year when the young and not-so-young get to let their true faces show during the only time it’s acceptable to be seen in costume and masks. Once again, it’s Halloween, or more accurately, Samhain (pronounced SOW-IN), which means summer’s end and is celebrated at the end of fall and beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. It was a final celebration of the harvest before the earth slumbered through winter. The day also marked the Celts’ version of the New Year and the time when they believed the dead came back to walk the earth once more. The holiday has been with us for centuries in various forms.

The day was a time to honor ancestors, but also ward off evil spirits by wearing costumes to confuse them. Turnips were carved with faces and placed in the windows to scare off the dead. People would go “a-souling.” They would pray for the household’s dead relatives in exchange for food and drink. In Scotland, the dead were impersonated by men who would wear all white and cover their faces with a veil.

Halloween as we know it today can be traced back to the early Christians. In the 800s, the Catholic Church wanted to wipe out pagan holidays and convert the heathens, so they would create a holy day to coincide with an established pagan festival. The Roman festivals of Feralia and Pomona’s Day were merged with Samhain and the new holiday replaced all three. Pomona’s day was a harvest festival in honor of the Roman Goddess of fruits and trees. This could explain where the tradition of bobbing for apples came from. Feralia was a day of mourning and remembering the dead.

Early Christians began celebrating All Saints Day on Nov. 1. They began their observance at sunset the night before. Some of the ways they celebrated were to dress in costumes of Christian saints to scare away the evil spirits and then they would go door-to-door, begging for food. Eventually, All Souls’ Day, which commemorated the dead who were not saints was added on Nov. 2. Soul cakes (currant buns) were given out when those celebrating went from house to house, offering to pray for their dead, similar to the a-souling.

Less than a century later, those two early Christian holidays merged into Hallow Time (Oct. 31-Nov. 2). Most of the celebrations took place the night before All Hallows Day on All Hallows Eve. Halloween quickly became the name.

Today, the holiday has grown so popular, it is second only to Christmas in the amount of money spent on decorations. Many Christian churches discourage their members from celebrating, saying it is evil; however, simply reading up on the history tells a different story.