Easter Traditions

Tomorrow is Easter, and I have been thinking about family traditions. One tradition in my family is Easter breakfast. It is something that my Nonna did every single year, and the whole family would get together at her house, no matter what. I made the Easter bread with the hardboiled eggs inside of it last year, for the very first time. It was extremely time consuming! I got a special appreciation for how much time the preparations must have taken her.

My cousin Lucy has been doing Easter breakfast for many years now. She is going to be doing it this year. The menu has not changed much--Easter bread (she makes individual bread baskets wrapped around a hard boiled egg), cold cuts, cheesebread (the two main ingredients are cheese and lard), fruit, coffee, and egg nog. Over the years we have added the mimosas, I think because there are so many little kids running around, the champagne steadies the nerves.

I recently found this photo and really got a kick out of it, and hopefully you will too.

Easter Circa 1981

This was taken probably in the early 80's or thereabouts. Nonna is seated at the table and I'm on the left in a green dress. My cousins are on the right, aunts and uncles to the left and my parents are standing behind my cousins. My youngest brother was cut out of the picture because he is sitting on dad's shoulders. And an uncle is missing (most likely the one who is taking the photo). But other than that, this is the family that would assemble every year at my father's childhood home, with his two older brothers, wives and all the kids. There are 6 grandchildren in all, 2 girls (including me) and 4 boys.

This year our breakfast will be at Lucy's house. She is the young girl on the far right in a suit, with feathered hair. She may not be happy with me for posting this photo, but hey, I'm wearing a homemade dress with a bunny pin on it--she looked a heck of a lot more fashionable than me! And also, she hasn't changed at all since the picture was taken--and I'm not even saying that just to be nice--it's totally true! She has the good genes!

Sometimes it's hard to believe that all this time has passed since this photo was taken. In that time, one cousin and both brothers became pharmacists, one cousin became a doctor, one a pilot, and between all of us, we have twelve children, (8 girls, and 4 boys.)

In that time, 3 family members in this photo have passed on. My Uncle Dominick, pictured on my left, my Great Uncle Dominick, pictured on my right, and of course, Nonna. They are not here anymore, but I think they must know about the breakfast. And are probably thinking, those kids would never be able to pull it off if we didn't show them what to do first!

Hope that everyone has a Happy Easter, and God Bless.

Faith, Hope and Love,

Angela

First "Official" Training Walk

I had my first "official" training walk, outside, walking from my house on a specific route through the park, yesterday afternoon. I put official in quotes because, although I did carry a fanny pack and a bottle of water, I listened to headphones, which you are not supposed to do during the 3-day. But, I was alone and tend to get bored with no one to talk to, so I put them on.

I ended up logging 5 miles, in about 90 minutes. So a pretty good pace, even a little faster than a 3-day pace, which I learned on Thursday night at my Get Started meeting, is 20 minutes/1 mile.

The best thing about the walk was the perfect weather. A slight breeze, sunny, and not too hot. I hope the weather is like this for the 3-day! In fact, the walk was totally uneventful except for the end, when I walked back into my own neighborhood, past a neighbor's house. She was sitting on her front porch with her dog, an ancient-looking black pug. When I say ancient, I mean he was old as the hills, he had a gray muzzle, and was pretty overweight. Anyway, as I walked past, this decepit-looking old dog sees me, and literally sprints across his front yard towards me, barking the entire time. I very nearly froze with fear (I had a dog growing up who used to chase me and my brothers and bite us) and at the last minute, stepped off the sidewalk and into the road to avoid him. The little bugger chased me into the road! The neighbor was running after him, apologizing profusely. Luckily, for some odd reason, he became distracted by something else and retreated before he reached me.

I always wonder how our four-legged friends would respond to having a whole bunch of people walk past their houses during the 3-day. I guess I'm lucky that they aren't holding the 3-day in my neighborhood! There are several dogs in my neighborhood that bark if the wind blows in the wrong direction, so I can only imagine how they would react to the 3-day.

Yesterday I received 2 donations, so this brings my total amount raised to just over $2100. I am less than $200 away from my goal of $2300. A big thanks to everyone who has been helping me reach my goal.

And a big happy birthday to my youngest daughter Chloe. She turned 4 today!

Faith, Hope and Love,

Angela

Announcing the Team Bake Sale!

The team bake sale this year will be held on Saturday, June 9, at Tricia's house. If anyone has some good original recipes they would like to share, please leave a comment on this blog. I am always in search of something new to sell.

Christine has had a few very successful bake sales in the past in her neighborhood, so we are really hoping we will be successful as well. I tried "Coffee for the Cure" and no one seemed that interested in Maxwell House coffee or Nonni's Biscotti. Perhaps a cupcake or a brownie will get people excited. At least I know I have enough styrofoam cups to last me at least a year!

If you want more information about this bake sale, leave a comment on this blog or message me on Facebook. I would certainly appreciate any input that you have, as well.

Faith, Hope, and Love,

Angela

Pot of Gold Party

Last night I had an open house type party fundraiser at my house. Arbonne was there, Lia Sophia was there, and I had Your Golden Opportunity there buying gold from the guests.

Turnout was disappointing to say the least. I invited over 30 people, less than half responded, and out of the ones who responded yes, only about 8 people showed up. Two of them Ta-Ta team members. To top it off, some of the people who had brought gold were disappointed that what they thought was gold jewelry, wasn't gold jewelry.

The Arbonne and Lia Sophia consultants were both very kind and gracious even though they did not get a lot of orders, but I was grateful to them for taking the time to come out and be there. The show closes in one week (on March 9) if anyone is interested in ordering something by then. I will get a percentage of the sales going towards my fundraising goal.

Above is a picture of Christine, Lisa and I wearing our Pot of Gold t-shirts. I still have some of those left. You can comment on this post if you'd like to purchase one. They are $15 each, with $5 from each shirt going towards my 3 day fundraising goal. I think I'll wear mine for St. Patty's Day!

Last night taught me a couple of things:

1. Never expect people to RSVP to a party where you are selling stuff. Unless you are really close friends or something like that. They will never tell you outright that they don't like stuff like that. And some people think that no RSVP at all is better than a "no" RSVP. Personally I would prefer any response to no response at all.

2. I think most people would rather just write a check and donate directly to your website or send in a check or something, than buy stuff they don't necessarily need.

3. Sometimes people will donate just to get you to stop bothering them. OK I am kidding about this part. Sort of.

No matter what the motivation, what I really want is more donations. As of today and counting the cash I made at the Pot of Gold Party, I am at $1360.00. Which is over $100 more than I had yesterday. So as Christine says, keep going!

Faith, Hope and Love,

Angela