Passover is coming and as usual, I’m both excited and nervous about it. Excited because Passover is one of my favorite holidays of the year. Nervous because it falls on me to set the overall message and presentation of the celebration.

When is Passover 2009? Dates of Jewish Holidays – Pesach Date

In 2009 Passover begins at sundown on Wednesday April 8 and ends at nightfall on Thursday April 16 in the Diaspora (Wednesday April 15 in Israel).

Because we are not Jewish, we weren’t raised with any concept of Passover. Nor do we have years of family tradition surrounding it to adhere to. Instead, we’ve kind of made it up as we went along. You could maybe identify “seasons” to our Passover celebration.

For instance when the kids were small, it definitely took on a character of being geared around them specifically. Then there were several years where we celebrated it with our whole Sunday School/youth group class. (Those were more like an exercise in controlled chaos.)

Last year I pretty much threw out most of what we’d done in the past and drew upon elements and traditions that I’d only just learned about. So this year I’ve yet to decide whether this year too is to be an upheaval, whether to return to past traditions, or whether to build on what was started last year.

Each year I try to take stock of where the family is at in every facet and then go to God with it to determine what needs to be emphasized that year. Its an awesome and humbling responsibility to undertake. Particularly if you try ti get real honest with where the family is at at that specific point in time.

For me Passover is as much about the preparation as it is about the celebration itself. But maybe that’s exactly how it should be. I nervously await where this year’s might go.

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The Dirty Truths No One Shares with New Moms | Blog Nosh Magazine

I thought back to all the times I’d tried to warn her and I knew I was partially to blame. It’s true. We don’t tell our pregnant friends everything, not because we don’t think they can take it, not because we don’t think they’ll believe us, but because it hurts to relive it and it’s easier to joke about sleepless nights than to go into details about how hard it really is.

When It Isn’t Really Senility – The New Old Age Blog – NYTimes.com

Reversible causes of dementia include the side effects of many medications. Ditropan is only the most recent addition to the list, occasioned in part by a study by U.S. Navy neurologist Dr. Jack Tsao involving 870 men and women with an average age of 75. The subjects, who were all Catholic priests, nuns and brothers, were followed for almost eight years. At a 2008 meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, Dr. Tsao reported that those who were taking anticholinergic drugs — a class that includes not only Detrol but also drugs to treat hypertension, asthma and Parkinson’s disease — had a 50 percent higher rate of cognitive decline than those who were not.

BabasFarmLife

If you have lost your job during this economy slump and are wondering how to bring in cash to make ends meet, I may just have the solution for you. You probably have things laying around the house that you don’t need, or have never even used. Perhaps you have collectables taking up space or old CD’s or DVD’s that you no longer listen to or watch; or maybe you received one too many toaster oven’s or coffeemakers for
wedding gifts and not sure what to do with them; or too many designer purses in your closet?

Your Impact Matters

My passions are my children, my home and our beautiful Earth. On these pages you’ll find my personal recipes, crafts I do with my children, homeschooling information for the beginner, and homesteading advice.

THE DAILY BLONDE: The Luck of the Irish?

I am not Irish? Come on, now. I have freckles. Freckles mean I’m Irish, right? I also like cabbage and corned beef. Come to think of it, I eat anything put in front of me, so that doesn’t really mean much. But I have freckles. Not as many as my little auburn haired daughter, but I have them. I also buy Lucky Charms (because they are magically delicious) and I believe in pots of gold at the end of rainbows. Just haven’t located the rainbow yet.

Down with Facebook!

For the five or six Amish shut-ins who may not yet have heard of this scourge (your tenacious ignorance is to be admired, and I’d immediately friend you if I was into Facebook and you had electricity), Facebook is an online community where colleagues, friends, long-lost acquaintances, friends of friends or long-lost acquaintances, and perfect strangers find and “friend” each other based on their real or perceived
affinity. They then have access to each other’s web pages, and
consequently to each other’s lives, quirks, photos, jottings,
oversharings, and mental disorders, as well as to those of the
ever-expanding universe of their friends’ circles, thus increasing the likelihood that you will either embarrass yourself or be embarrassed by someone whose life would never otherwise intersect with yours. (Right about now, a Facetard is ginning up an angry letter to the editor saying this would not be the case if you know how to control your privacy settings. Save the geek speech for your Facebook friends, Facetard, I already got my eight hours sleep.)

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A child’s 1st birthday is a joyous occasion, which lives in the memories of the proud parents forever. However, the majority of kids won’t remember anything about this fine day, but do enjoy looking at the birthday photos later on.

Here’s one way to make this special 1st birthday occasion into a stylish memento. Instead of putting these pictures into a photo album along with all the others, buy a special photo album dedicated to this first year of life, culminating in the 1st birthday party. This also makes a terrific gift idea to present to the parents.

So what goes into this keepsake photo album? Most parents takes hundreds of pictures of their children in the first year. Begin your commemorative 1st birthday party photo album with all of the pictures you’ve taken since birth ” consider the size of the photo album which will accommodate the number of pictures! Try to arrange them in sequence, which is easy if you’ve dated them on the back. The 1st birthday party photos go at the end.

If you’re wielding the camera, look sharp! These photos can be treasures! Two photos of our daughter’s 1st birthday has given us all plenty of laughter over the years. We seated her in her high chair, birthday hat and all, placing the birthday cake in front of her. We captured her look of shock and delight on film as she viewed this chocolate concoction. She promptly embraced the cake ” with her face and hands! Following a sampling, she sat up to show her chocolate covered face, smiling as big as you please. Lucky we’d already sung ‘Happy Birthday‘ blown out and removed the candle before she got to the cake! These pictures are the standouts of that 1st birthday party!

Keep a log of all the gifts and gift givers and include this information along with a photo of each gift. As kids get older, particularly around the age of seven or eight, they seem to enjoy knowing who attended their 1st birthday party and were thoughtful enough to give them a gift.

Don’t throw that wrapping paper and ribbon away! Cut small squares of each wrapping and a bit of ribbon, giving each a place in your 1st birthday party album. When you think how much styles, designs and materials change over a 20 year period, these little pieces of ‘antiquity’ will provide a peek back in time when your child’s all grown up.

Last, but not least, is the birthday outfit. This is usually very special and doesn’t get worn out. While it won’t fit in your photo album, this is an outfit you’ll want to save. Sure, you’ll have photos, but there’s nothing like the real article. You might want to wrap it in gift paper and use double-sided tape to attach it to the front or back of the album cover.

Now you’ve got a stylish 1st birthday party memento that can make a beautiful 21st birthday party gift. Think of the pleasure your grandchildren will derive from this lovely ‘antique’.

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Remember the Disney cruise we went on? You know that multi thousand dollar vacation we paid for by refinancing the house a few years back? It was great wasn’t it? It truly was. I could probably bore everyone beyond the immediate family with stories from the trip for days on end. And the neat thing is my stories would be different from every other family members stories. That’s what makes it so fun to get to reminiscing sometimes like at family gatherings. The sort of reminiscing that is a favorite part of family life for me personally. Everyone has their own little piece to contribute. Right from the four hour delay on the flight out through the space shuttle take off we witnessed as we waited for the plane ride home, it was fantastic. Now an indelible slice or our family life pie.

Making memories through doing things and going places is something we learned some years back so we have quite a few of them. One particular favorite of mine is taking family vacations instead of doing the Christmas present extravaganza. We didn’t do it every year but I fondly remember the times we did. If you ask me, we could have done even more than we have. The vacation memories last long after the presents are discarded and forgotten.

But here’s the thing: Vacations and memory making episodes don’t have to be mega-dollar extravanganzas like that Disney vacation was. If you can afford those and even more expensive ones, more power to you. But you know what? Even the simple family fishing or camping trip, or trip to the city or to the country or to the beach or to the mountains or ballgame or whatever it is your family enjoys does equally well.

We live a few hours drive from the Black Hills area of South Dakota. When the kids were still little, we discovered a silly, kitschy little campground there called “Flintstone Village” with flat painted Flintstone figures, tiny train ride, and worn out putt putt golf holes. (Not a full course mind you, just a couple of holes.) Our kids loved it and therefore so did we. And it was cheap for us! Not something we had to go into hock to afford. We just packed up our crappy camping stuff, drove a couple hundred miles, and paid a few dollars entrance.

Did I ever tell you the story of taking the kids to the midget car races while we were staying at Flintstone Village in South Dakota. Well, you see…

Grandma, Mom and me

I love my mom. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Most people do. Yet I suspect I’m also in an overloaded life raft of folks who dread visiting their aging parent. Not much to talk about. Not much to report. Too many prying questions you’d rather not answer. Too many repetitions. Yet I’ve chosen  to live in the same town most my adult life. So I feel obligated to stay close but I might ignore more than the good son or daughter who lives at a distance. (Case in point, my sister who lives 60 miles further away but is much more of a constant in Mom’s life than I am.)

Speaking of repetitive stories, those same stories I’ve heard dozens of times and tuned out hundreds more are ones I’ve encouraged my Mom to write down or record somehow for years to no avail. Once she’s gone though, all those stories go with her.

Here lately I’ve come up with a great idea that at once gets the stories I know and many I don’t recorded for posterity and makes our visits more fun for both of us than they’ve been for years. How? Well, I bought one of those scanner/printer combinations and parked it at my Mom’s house. Every week I try to make time to visit taking my laptop with me. I scan some of the old pictures she has in albums and on walls. Then as I edit them slightly at the kitchen table, she will go on and on telling stories the pictures bring to mind. I type them into the caption of the picture (using Picasa from google) asking follow up or clarification questions as necessary. Doing this, the time just flies by and yet our visits are much longer than they were before.

When I’m all done with the pictures, (which could literally take years at this rate) I plan on turning the collection into books for all immediate family members through a site like mypublisher.com. In the meantime though, I post weekly updates of that week’s  pictures over at our family website at geni.com for all the family to enjoy. I’ve gotten positive comments from several family members for what I’m doing.

But the point isn’t the pats on the back. The point is that I’ve found something that rekindles a stagnant relationship and records a bit of family history that will soon otherwise be only a vague memory in our family life. I recommend it to any of you faced with a similar situation.