Days of Easter season
The date for celebrating is Easter is calculated in a complicated manner relating to the full moon, but do you know that Easter must be celebrated on a Sunday between the dates of March 22 and April 25?
There’s certainly more to this season than Easter. Can you put these the following days in order: Shove Tuesday, Good Friday, Easter, Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, and Palm Sunday?
Easter symbols
There are many symbols used at Easter and many remind Christians of the original Easter events and their meaning.
The cross
The cross is sometimes shown with Jesus on it symbolising the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. More often though, the cross is empty reminding Christians of Jesus's resurrection and the hope that this victory over death brings to others.
Chickens
I have always thought of chickens and eggs as symbols of new life, but in the Netherlands they have roosters on the top of their churches to remind them of the Peter and his denying Jesus three times before the cock crowed.
Candles
Candles are used in many church services over Easter and remind people of Jesus as the light of the world.
Eggs
Eggs are, of course, a symbol of new life, and have been a symbol of spring (Northern Hemisphere) since before Christ. Don’t ask me where chocolate fits in.
Decorating eggs has become a real art in many countries. Have you seen the beautiful eggs from the Ukraine and Poland? There are also gorgeous eggs decorated with finely cut patterns of paper, and of course some of the most beautiful eggs are those made by Faberge for the Russian czars.
If you want to try your own dyeing of eggs, there are some great natural dyes. Onion skins for yellowy orange, beetroot for pale red, spinach for pale green, red cabbage for blue and coffee for beige, are some natural substances worth trying. Put the eggs and dyestuff with a little vinegar and bring to the boil. Boil for 15 minutes. My Polish friends used to do these with lots of onion skins and then carve into the egg with a large needles forming intricate patterns. The eggs were then lightly oiled before being given away.
Many people exchange eggs for Easter, but many others enjoy games with rolling, breaking or hunting for eggs.
Lamb
Eastern Europeans almost all include lamb in their Easter dinner to remind them of Christ, the Lamb of God.
Butterfly
Its whole life cycle is meant to symbolize the life of Jesus Christ. First, the caterpillar represents His life on earth. Second, the cocoon signifies Christ's death. Third, the butterfly represent his being raised from the dead.
Pretzels
Pretzels were originally a Lenten food as their twisted shape suggests arms crossed in prayer.
Hot cross buns
Hot cross buns, with their dough or icing cross on top, are now eaten throughout the Lenten season, but were first baked in England to for Good Friday.
Passion Plays
Have you ever been to Oberammergau in Germany for the passion play? It is the most famous of the passion plays and has been presented almost every 10 years since1634. It is definitely on our list of things to do. Most of the town takes part with some children leaving the classroom to play their part and then returning to their studies at school, as the play runs from May to October, and lasts from 9.30 in the morning to 6:15 at night with almost 3 hours off for lunch. The next play is in 2010 and tickets will be on sale in 2008 if you’re interested.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
It’s a small world after all
I grew up with Disneyland and loved the “It’s a Small World” ride. It was a boat trip through animated children from all around the world singing “It’s a Small World”. If you want to see the YouTube video of this ride, follow the link below. The link takes you to a 4 minute video of the ride from one person’s experience. There are a number of other YouTube videos of this ride.
I always thought that this was a cute ride, and it helped me to see that that the world was small and connected. So...how did this ride come about and are these sentiments still relevant?
Beginnings“
In 1956, Walt Disney attended a conference, along with many other notable celebrities of the time, at the invitation of President Eisenhower. The conference was about founding a national organization to help promote world peace through international civilian travel. (This dream became a reality in 1956, when Eisenhower founded the People to People Student Ambassador Program.) Inspired by the ideas from the meeting, Disney returned to California and set to work, creating the It's A Small World ride at Disneyland.” (Wikipedia)
How can we impact positively on our world?
Pollution
Where is the mess we’re creating going? In the old days, ships used to throw their garbage overboard without a thought. Today we know that China’s air pollution is affecting the world, including Los Angeles. However, it’s easy to criticise other people and countries, but are we doing our part? How good are you at recycling, using less energy including that in producing consumer products, etc. I know I still have a long way to go, but remembering that it is a small world and that my actions affect many others helps me to be a better world citizen.
Travel
Yes, travel can help us to understand the world and its people. How much more understanding are you, when you know that the people in the countries of the news stories are real people, just like us. Their values, customs, and ideals are just as important to them as ours are to us. One way to make a difference is to do volunteer work in the country, combining a holiday with making a differnce. (See the Australian Volunteers International website below.)
Cheap airfares
However, just visiting other countries and talking to the people can open your eyes. The Best Flights site lists an around the world flight with United and for $1539! (Wow, I just paid $3500 for an emergency trip to Seattle to see my mother.) On the special fare you could go Syd-LA-Frankfort-another European city-Frankfort-Singapore-Syd; not a bad fare. Think what you could learn.
Do unto others
I guess the biggest thing we can do is to follow the Golden rule: Treat others as you want to be treated. At least 8 major religions (including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and more) have a version of this in their teachings. Of course most of us know this in Christianity, but did you know in Buddhism people believe, “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.”
Easter
Thinking of our small world, isn’t a bad way to begin the Easter season.
Until March
“It's a world of laughter
A world of tears
It's a world of hopes
And a world of fears
There's so much that we share
That it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all”
http://webweedswisdom.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqTyBBit7NI
http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/lyrics/smworld.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_a_Small_World
http://www.australianvolunteers.com/work/index.asp?menuid=250
http://www.bestflights.com.au/web/content/news/newsletters/31-07-2003.shtml
http://www.teachingvalues.com/goldenrule.html
I always thought that this was a cute ride, and it helped me to see that that the world was small and connected. So...how did this ride come about and are these sentiments still relevant?
Beginnings“
In 1956, Walt Disney attended a conference, along with many other notable celebrities of the time, at the invitation of President Eisenhower. The conference was about founding a national organization to help promote world peace through international civilian travel. (This dream became a reality in 1956, when Eisenhower founded the People to People Student Ambassador Program.) Inspired by the ideas from the meeting, Disney returned to California and set to work, creating the It's A Small World ride at Disneyland.” (Wikipedia)
How can we impact positively on our world?
Pollution
Where is the mess we’re creating going? In the old days, ships used to throw their garbage overboard without a thought. Today we know that China’s air pollution is affecting the world, including Los Angeles. However, it’s easy to criticise other people and countries, but are we doing our part? How good are you at recycling, using less energy including that in producing consumer products, etc. I know I still have a long way to go, but remembering that it is a small world and that my actions affect many others helps me to be a better world citizen.
Travel
Yes, travel can help us to understand the world and its people. How much more understanding are you, when you know that the people in the countries of the news stories are real people, just like us. Their values, customs, and ideals are just as important to them as ours are to us. One way to make a difference is to do volunteer work in the country, combining a holiday with making a differnce. (See the Australian Volunteers International website below.)
Cheap airfares
However, just visiting other countries and talking to the people can open your eyes. The Best Flights site lists an around the world flight with United and for $1539! (Wow, I just paid $3500 for an emergency trip to Seattle to see my mother.) On the special fare you could go Syd-LA-Frankfort-another European city-Frankfort-Singapore-Syd; not a bad fare. Think what you could learn.
Do unto others
I guess the biggest thing we can do is to follow the Golden rule: Treat others as you want to be treated. At least 8 major religions (including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and more) have a version of this in their teachings. Of course most of us know this in Christianity, but did you know in Buddhism people believe, “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.”
Easter
Thinking of our small world, isn’t a bad way to begin the Easter season.
Until March
“It's a world of laughter
A world of tears
It's a world of hopes
And a world of fears
There's so much that we share
That it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all”
http://webweedswisdom.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqTyBBit7NI
http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/lyrics/smworld.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_a_Small_World
http://www.australianvolunteers.com/work/index.asp?menuid=250
http://www.bestflights.com.au/web/content/news/newsletters/31-07-2003.shtml
http://www.teachingvalues.com/goldenrule.html
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Too Old? Never!
Upgrading my mother's computer had become a necessity. Her computer was well over five years old and so slow to open programs. She would be sitting at the computer for ages just waiting for the machine to chug through its processes. This was not good. The older we get the more we must move around. Our bodies dictate it. Otherwise joints become very stiff. And as my mother is fond of saying, "What you don't use, you loose!"
Why upgrade? Why bother struggling with a computer when you're over 80 years old? Heck, why bother when you are 70, when you are 60! Well, my mother and I did discuss this issue when, in her mid eighties, she first decided to learn how to use a computer and bought her first one. She had wanted to listen to her music, get email from her grandchildren overseas and have a library of information and news, the Internet, at her fingertips. She was also curious about digital technology, wanting to learn about it first hand.
Life, be in it!
What learn new things? At 80? Old dogs never learn new tricks! Well, label yourself an old dog and sit in the sun all day and you won't have the capacity to do anything else! Instead, at 90 or 80 or any age for that matter, take an interest in new people, learn new games, play cards with a group of friends, with grandchildren, do crosswords, sudoko, any puzzles, think, plan, read and do! And you could learn to use that digital tool called a "computer".
Housebound? Fly away via the Internet.
Now, in her nineties, her need to be able to use a computer seems more compelling. She recently handed in her car licence and is now more housebound. Getting out to the galleries and libraries in Canberra is not as easy. She tires more quickly now so a whole day at a gallery is out of the question and having lived through the Great Depression she feels that taking a taxi to the gallery just to view something for an hour is an extravagance. With a computer she can click on to the National Library for instance, and view its exhibitions; all from the comfort of her own chair.
Videos emailed from friends and family.
With more grandchildren moving further a field and getting married in places too distant for her to travel to, digital photographic material whether images or video can be sent to her via email. Imagine the thrill of watching a family video taken on a mobile phone and immediately sent to you via the Internet to be viewed on the large screen of your computer. (Watching movies on the tiny screen of a mobile phone requires the baby fresh eyesight forty plus usually loose!) Actually my mother was unable to receive video on her old modem connected machine. And this was another reason for her upgrade. Broadband, even the poor broadband Telstra supplies everyone in Yass, is much faster to download email with images and video attached as well as Web sites. Broadband puts an end to the Big Wait! And this is more and more important the older one gets because older people must remain active if they are to move around at all!
Music, your choice, 24 hours a day!
Probably the most compelling reason for my mother to decide to upgrade her machine and her computer skills was the fact that the CD player on the old computer was temperamental and she missed listening to music. Furthermore the new machine held the promise of being able to store all her music and she could just turn on the machine and listen to music all day without having to change a CD.
It also helped that the price of laptops has dropped. Instead of outlaying close to $5,000 as she did the first time, she could pick one up for less than half that price. And if she had been happy with a desktop computer she could have got a new one even cheaper. (And we're lucky in Yass that we have good technical support providers.)
It also helped that family and friends can help her learn to use her new computer. And as one of those involved, I love the opportunities it provides for shared companionship.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Games for the holidays
Today as I searched for a topic to write about. I decided that games was where I was spending most of my free time over the holidays and thought you might be also. Then I searched my previous articles and found that four years ago, I had written about games as well so I have repeated some of the information from that article.
Holidays have been special family times for us, often we spent more time playing games than watching TV. You have to admit that it’s much easier to talk during a game than it is during a TV show, and that has to be a bonus for everyone.
This Christmas season we have spent most of our game time on croquet or Chinese checkers. A nice combination of inside/outside, don't you think?
Three dimensional Tic Tac Toe
One uncle, Harold, was a mathematical thinking man. He taught us to draw 3 Tic Tac Toe grids in a line and then to imagine them stacked on top of each other. There's a 4 square grid shown on the Monash site listed below. It's lots of fun and very challenging.
Logic Puzzles
Another uncle, Frank, made the most wonderful wooden puzzles. My favourite was “Who owns the elephant” where I had to follow clues to find a house colour, pet, street number, favourite food, etc for each of five friends. This was special as he used lots of names of my pets, friends, house numbers and favourite foods and it took about 6 months to solve it. Perhaps you could spend some time creating some special family games (and memories!).
I have seen other versions of this puzzle on a number of websites, including the mathsisfun site. It is said that Einstein created it and that 98% or people can't solve it. However, it is a logic puzzle, so it can be solved if you know the rules. Using an grid (similar to the one found at the DavidPace site) can be useful.
Other Puzzles
An easy one to make might be a jigsaw puzzle out of an enlarged family photo printed on cardboard. You could even do the daily zigsaw on the net at the zigsawzone site This allows you to to compete against yourself for time. It took me 16 minutes, and you probably can be much faster. At least all the pieces are rightside up and facing the correct direction.
Car games
Eye Spy was a favourite of my children in the car, but here are a couple of other ideas.
The momsminivan website has some very good ideas for games to play in the car. One is a 4 x 4 grid (16 squares) each with a picture of something you might see while travelling in a car (a red car, school bus, police car, 50 speed zone sign, etc). When you have 4 in a row (across, down or diagonal), you win.
Scavenger Hunt was also suggested by the momsminivan site. Give each child a list of items to watch for while driving. The list can be made up ahead of time and adjusted for the roads you are taking. The site suggests a sample list of items to hunt for!
Board games
My favourite board game as a child was Candyland, then it became Monopoly, and later Risk. Our son, Peter, used to enjoy Stratego with his good friend, James. Monopoly was also Bec’s favourite. This game has entertained generations since it was created in 1934. and is still one of the most popular games.
However Chinese checkers is the flavour of the year with us. My grandparents used to have a game every evening and then set it up again for the next night and placed the board under the sofa.
Poetry
Although, not a game, billboard poetry was suggested as a good activity by the familyfun site. Take turns picking out four words from road signs. Give the words to the other players who have 1 minute to turn the words into a four-line, rhyming poem using one word per line.
Lots more
I’m sure some of you also have some great ideas. I’d love to hear them if you have time to leave a comment. Anyway, enjoy the rest of summer.
Places to visit
http://www.mathsisfun.com/logicpuzzle.html
http://www.davidpace.com/all-else/other-items/einstein-logic-puzzle.htm
http://www.jigzone.com/puzzles/daily-jigsaw
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~andyb/NC3D/nc3d.html
http://www.momsminivan.com/
Holidays have been special family times for us, often we spent more time playing games than watching TV. You have to admit that it’s much easier to talk during a game than it is during a TV show, and that has to be a bonus for everyone.
This Christmas season we have spent most of our game time on croquet or Chinese checkers. A nice combination of inside/outside, don't you think?
Three dimensional Tic Tac Toe
One uncle, Harold, was a mathematical thinking man. He taught us to draw 3 Tic Tac Toe grids in a line and then to imagine them stacked on top of each other. There's a 4 square grid shown on the Monash site listed below. It's lots of fun and very challenging.
Logic Puzzles
Another uncle, Frank, made the most wonderful wooden puzzles. My favourite was “Who owns the elephant” where I had to follow clues to find a house colour, pet, street number, favourite food, etc for each of five friends. This was special as he used lots of names of my pets, friends, house numbers and favourite foods and it took about 6 months to solve it. Perhaps you could spend some time creating some special family games (and memories!).
I have seen other versions of this puzzle on a number of websites, including the mathsisfun site. It is said that Einstein created it and that 98% or people can't solve it. However, it is a logic puzzle, so it can be solved if you know the rules. Using an grid (similar to the one found at the DavidPace site) can be useful.
Other Puzzles
An easy one to make might be a jigsaw puzzle out of an enlarged family photo printed on cardboard. You could even do the daily zigsaw on the net at the zigsawzone site This allows you to to compete against yourself for time. It took me 16 minutes, and you probably can be much faster. At least all the pieces are rightside up and facing the correct direction.
Car games
Eye Spy was a favourite of my children in the car, but here are a couple of other ideas.
The momsminivan website has some very good ideas for games to play in the car. One is a 4 x 4 grid (16 squares) each with a picture of something you might see while travelling in a car (a red car, school bus, police car, 50 speed zone sign, etc). When you have 4 in a row (across, down or diagonal), you win.
Scavenger Hunt was also suggested by the momsminivan site. Give each child a list of items to watch for while driving. The list can be made up ahead of time and adjusted for the roads you are taking. The site suggests a sample list of items to hunt for!
Board games
My favourite board game as a child was Candyland, then it became Monopoly, and later Risk. Our son, Peter, used to enjoy Stratego with his good friend, James. Monopoly was also Bec’s favourite. This game has entertained generations since it was created in 1934. and is still one of the most popular games.
However Chinese checkers is the flavour of the year with us. My grandparents used to have a game every evening and then set it up again for the next night and placed the board under the sofa.
Poetry
Although, not a game, billboard poetry was suggested as a good activity by the familyfun site. Take turns picking out four words from road signs. Give the words to the other players who have 1 minute to turn the words into a four-line, rhyming poem using one word per line.
Lots more
I’m sure some of you also have some great ideas. I’d love to hear them if you have time to leave a comment. Anyway, enjoy the rest of summer.
Places to visit
http://www.mathsisfun.com/logicpuzzle.html
http://www.davidpace.com/all-else/other-items/einstein-logic-puzzle.htm
http://www.jigzone.com/puzzles/daily-jigsaw
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~andyb/NC3D/nc3d.html
http://www.momsminivan.com/
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