Easter Preparations, Witchcraft, and Bubbles

 1.) Witchcraft Supplies 

I will never not think it's kind of funny that you can buy good luck/ witchcraft candles at our local grocery store. 

Right there next to all the Our Lady of Guadalupe and Angel candles. 

I don't know why I find it so amusing. Culture down here is very superstitious; I've had more than one person express concern about giving one of my babies ojo, and I once knew a family who sincerely believed a local restaurant shut down because the mother of the family put a curse on it. 

I guess that's one aspect of culturally Catholic areas people don't talk about-- they tend to be superstitious. Even the formerly culturally Catholic parts of the Midwestern US has the St. Joseph superstition.Burying a statue of St. Joseph upside down so your house will sell isn't a curse, but it is superstitious. 

I guess I just find it ironic that you can get your santeria supplies in the same store you buy your diapers and birthday cakes. 

2.) Paschal Candle

The reason I was in that section of the store in the first place--- 

It's time to make this year's paschal candle! 

I still don't feel like we could pull off Easter vigil mass, so it'll be The Miracle Maker, party food, and Sunday morning mass instead. Little Boy will be 7 next year: maybe Chris and I can divide and conquer so that at least some of us get to go. We'll see. 

3.) Stained Glass

 I'm reprising my stained glass Easter decorations from last year. (Click the link for a tutorial). 

So far, I have a Sacred Heart/Divine Mercy combo and an Agnus Dei lamb. I'm still trying to think up other resurrection symbols. The Easter lilly I made last year will probably make a comeback, but I'm not sure about an empty tomb. It's hard to make a good design of that in stained glass style for some reason. 

I might do some holy week symbols as well --palm fronds, crosses, a host and chalice, or feet being washed. I don't know, we'll see how many I can crank out. 

I'm doing the melted crayon outlines today,and I think I'll have the kids paint them this weekend. 

4.) Butter Cookies 

Something a lot less occult that the local grocery store (HEB) has been selling is tins of butter cookies, and they really seem to be pushing them with promotions the past week or so. 

I've never heard of any special association between Easter and butter cookies; they honestly seem to be more of a Christmas thing. Yet here they are. I got a free tin of them when I bought a $40 ham as part of a "meal deal". 

 I was amused they leaned into the sewing kit stereotype for the empty tins. 

5.) Bubbles, Bubbles Everywhere 

The weather has started to get hot. It's still early enough in the year that the heat is intermittent-- we have the AC on about half the time right now, and only occasionally on at night. 

This afternoon was one of the hot ones, so I put the kiddie pool on the porch, put some shampoo in, stirred up a huge mess of bubbles, and plopped the girls in.

Kept them entertained for a good hour. 

Funny aside about the kiddie pool-- it's a new one. Well, new to us. I found it on the side of a county road in the middle of nowhere, weighed down with a couple chunks of concrete and with a little dried mud in the bottom. I have no idea why someone left a $20 (it still has the sticker) Paw Patrol kiddie pool on the side of the road with concrete in it. I took it home, popped out the dents, and it doesn't even have any pinhole leaks. The whole thing is just really random. 

6.) Easter Dress 

I promised Little Boy and Little Girl I'd make them new clothes for Easter, and I was hoping to make something for Bitty Baby as well. 

I managed to make a shirt for Little Boy, but about two days ago realized I hadn't even started on a dress for Little Girl. I ended up taking a simple dress that I found at a rummage sale and adding embroidery instead of starting from scratch. 

The bodice is coming along nicely. There's a thick strip of green at the bottom hem that I'm not sure what I'll do with though. I was thinking of doing a big flashy floral pattern, but I don't think I have time for something that complex. We'll see. 

I don't know what I'm going to do for Bitty Baby. There's a really cute romper pattern one of my sisters in law sent me I was thinking of trying, but I'm not sure I have time. 

Not that she'll notice or care if I don't get to it. It's more the (completely arbitrary) principle of the thing.