Easter Eggs And Hot Cross Buns

It was that lovely time of spring when it's Easter so I just had to make hot cross buns on Good Friday. To me the tradition is all about the cross being on the buns and making the day special using a food.  The real trick for me was to make them without wheat flour or sugar, so I scoured the internet and came up with a great recipe.  It was a keto/paleo type recipe which is just fine for me who doesn't eat sugar or wheat flour. And it turned out I had all the necessary ingredients at hand and they made up quickly.  I did make cream cheese icing too and put it in the crosses.  These actually came out really well and tasted great!

Another Eastertide tradition at my home is to make some dyed hardboiled eggs.  Now, this is something I usually do with my son as we have fun dipping them in the colored waters and decorating the egg shells. Apparently, eggs symbolize resurrection and the cracking of eggs something to do with Jesus coming out of the tomb but I'm a bit hazy on the origins of this tradition. But this year it was the time of the Covad19 pandemic and he was sheltering in place at his apartment so I made them by myself (sadly).

But I had some large white eggs and got out the food dye and dip stuff and made about half a dozen.  And so some of them ended up as part of our Easter decorations. I happened to have a couple of cute stuffed bunny rabbits so it seemed a good idea to put the eggs in front of the bunnies.  I have no idea where the idea of rabbits come from for Easter although I think it has something to do with rabbits being prolific and Easter signals new life. A catholic website asserts the tradition that rabbits are associated with the Virgin Mary, however, as the Greeks, apparently, believed that rabbits could reproduce asexually, so early Greco-Christians may have made that association.

So those eggs have been quietly demolished the past few days, showing up sliced on toast for breakfast and in egg salad sandwiches at lunch.  

Turning Almond Milk Bottles Into Candlesticks

Inspired yet again by all the arty crafty things I see on Pinterest, I decided to do something with the shapely almond milk plastic bottles I seem to accumulate. So I stripped off the plastic labels from three Califia almond milk bottles and took them outside to paint them with some silver spray paint I'd recently acquired for $2 at a going-out-of-business sale at a nearby hardware store (Brookland True Value) and that was leftover from another project (spray painting used light bulbs as Christmas ornaments). Over a couple of days I did about two coats of this nice shiny silver spray paint on the bottles.  I then inserted some plastic candle holders I'd kept from a floral centerpiece that someone had once given me (yes, you can find a use for all those bits and  pieces you are hoarding!) and after also spraying them silver, put some bright orange candles in them. The candles I got at T.J. Maxx on sale, ten for $4!  I also weighted the bottles with some stones on their insides so there'd be no tipping over! Two of the candlesticks  I put next to my fall floral display in the dining room and the other one got a bit more gussied up with a green ribbon and silver paint sprayed fake flower for a kitchen shelf. I'm quite happy with these ornaments and know I can change out the colors, candles and embellishments once Christmas, Easter, St. Valentine's Day, or a birthday comes along. Who'd have thought painting ole plastic bottles and keeping them out of the dump could be so fun?

Free Art All Over Bloomingdale

sculpture garden on 1st NW

Mural on W St NW

You really can't wander around in our section of the city very long without seeing some of the free art just lying in wait for your enjoyment. I've captured some of it here -- there's the iron lady sculpture on First Street, and there's now often a seasonal outdoor installation at the intersection of T and RI Ave, and for those who like to take walks up the alleys there's a huge colorful mural on the side of a house on W street. There's others if you go look but these were just a few I saw on a recent walkabout.

Easter Art on RI Ave NW