Easter Eggs

It is a tradition in the countries of former Yugoslavia among those who celebrate Easter to dye the Easter eggs by using different plants. Of course, in the last few decades we've seen many new coloring options available in the stores, but this tradition still remained. Not having celebrated Christian holidays as a child, I have picked up on technique of dying eggs just recently.
It is best achieved with white eggs, which should be washed in water and vinegar and left to sit at room temperature for couple of hours (to help prevent the cracking during boiling)
There are two parts to it: decorating and dying.

For decoration, you can use several methods, each of them is meant to the area prevent behind the decoration from being colored. You can paint with hot wax (never tried it), place rubber bands, or place 'stickers' in the form of leaves. I usually just go out in the yard and pick up weeds that have the most interesting leaves or flowers. You can also use parsley or other herbs with small leaves. In order for them to stick to the egg, I first dip them in water, and then nicely spread them on the egg. To keep them in place during boiling I then place the egg in a knee pantyhose, being careful not to mess up the leaf. After each egg I wrap a rubber band on the pantyhose, to keep it securely in place. I usually place no more than 3 eggs in each hose.

For coloring the eggs, you can use different vegetables that have strong colors. prevent I've heard spinach used for green, carrots for orange, eggplant for purple....but every year the only produce that I am able to get a good color out of is red onion. I get extra onion skins from the grocery store in advance (just pick up those already loose in the bin, don't actually peal the onions in the store). Then place a layer of onion skins in a pan, fill with water, put eggs, and put more skins at the top. Every year I also try those other colors, which just make the eggs yellowish. I then put those off-white eggs in the onion pan last, and they end up having a different shade than those eggs that were in the onions all the time. The eggs should be cooked on very low heat, to prevent them from moving too much and cracking. I leave them cooking for about an hour, but some cook them for several hours.
Once they are cool enough, I separate them, wash and dry them. Then to make them shine, I rub them with an oiled paper towel.

Part of the tradition is for each household member to pick an egg and then compete to see whose egg will crack all other eggs. Each contestant first holds the egg so that the top side is free. One person tries to crack another person's egg from the top. Then the other person tries to do the same by using the bottom side of the egg. (usually if the egg is cracked on one side, it has no chance of cracking another egg) The egg that has no cracks then goes on to compete with other eggs until there is only one hole egg left. That egg is then kept as a "keeper of the house", some say until next year! Since it is cooked for hours and has no cracks it does not smell - but I've never tried it :)

Happy Easter, everyone. Christ is Risen! He is risen, indeed!

March 25th - the Hail Day

This is a bit over-due...

Couple of weeks ago we had yet another hail storm in Austin. And it was a big one. We got into it while driving home from work, but thankfully were just 200 m from an underpass, under which then we were able to stop, along with over a dozen other vehicles until the worst of it was over.
That morning I forgot to close our retractable awning, and was afraid it will get badly damaged by extremely strong wind. Luckily, the mechanism wasn't damaged, and the fabric only got partially torn on one spot.
This was the most expensive hail storm in Austin, topping at $160 million. The spooky thing is that it happened on March 25th. Four years ago, when my car got pretty banged up by the hail, it again happened on March 25th. That storm caused $100 million of damage. And, in 1993, another big hail storm caused $120 million of damage - again on March 25th.
The lesson here - beware of March 25th's. :)

Present At the Door

A little birdie left us this present at our back yard door.
My first reaction was that it was from a young feathered mother who wasn't able to take care of the egg and left it at our door because she knew we have a bird, too. :) But in reality, this was probably a hollow egg from a young female bird who doesn't have a nest but her biological clock is making her produce eggs. I don't think it fell out of a nest, because there are no nests on a nearby tree, and the shell is intact.

Mortgage Refinancing

I finally did it!
After few months of "thinking about it", hearing others talk about it, watching the rates, talking with lenders, attending a seminar, and evaluating if it's worth for me, I finally locked in the rate on February 11th.
I was able to get a great rate of 4.625% with 1% origination fee, which is 1.5% less than my previous rate, 30 years fixed. It adds up in savings of $147 a month in P&I, but since my taxes went up, the monthly saving for this year will be $113.
The machine started moving quickly after the rate lock; I had an appraisal the week after. Based on the comparables sold in the last few months, by house was appraised at $7000 more than what I bought it for 3 years ago, but about $15000 less than what the city appraised it for a year ago for tax purposes. It was still more than enough for the 80% conventional loan that I was applying for, so with all my other financials I had no problem being approved for the credit.
I decided to only roll the escrow account deposits into the new loan and pay the closing costs up front. It was a good timing for that decision, with the tax refund happening around this time, the mortgage payments not starting for two months, and the old escrow account balance that will be refunded to me. Even with that cash deposit, my new loan is about $2500 more than previous loan pay off amount was, and it extends the loan for another 3 years that I had already been paying for. I plan on setting up biweekly payments, and making additional payments towards principal whenever possible, so I hope to bring the life of the loan down to about 22 years - still it seems like such a long time.
I had the closing on March 5th. I feel so relieved not having to think about that decision any more.

The Ranch Trip

This weekend I went on a wonderful ranch trip in West Texas. It was a joined outing of both St. Theresa's and St. Louis young adult groups, and there were about 16 of us. I decided to go just a few days before the trip, because I didn't have a lot of time in the last few days to think about it much. I was finalizing the refinancing on my house, of which I'll write in another post.
We were going to camp out on a ranch that belongs to Tiffany's parents/grandparents, a girl from St. Theresa's group. But because of the burn ban in most of Texas in these months, we would not be able to have camp fire, and thus not be able to cook or keep ourselves warm in the evenings. So, their parents, very generously, offered their house for all of us to stay.

We left Austin on Friday afternoon in a 5 car caravan for a 3.5 hour ride to Eldorado, which is where Tiffany's parents live. I rode with Lindsey, and we had a great time getting to know each other better. I was interested to hear more about her background, and how she got to be baptized into the Catholic church just last Easter. In turn, she wanted to hear about my conversion story, which led to further sharing of my years during and after the war in Bosnia. At the end, she told me that I should really write all this down, into a book of some sort. She is not the first person to tell me that, and interestingly, two other people have told me the same thing on this very trip, and one another just the day we came back. If I only had a tape recorder every time someone wants to know "my story" :)
We arrived to Eldorado, (by the way, I think it's really funny that I got to visit Eldorado - so Texan) a little bit before 11 pm. We only had one stop on the way for gas, and with the great company and conversation, it went by so quickly. We all came prepared with sleeping bags and pillows, as we expected to just line up like sardines on the floor. But, our wonderful hosts went out of their way to prepare as many beds for us as possible, and they had two couches, a sleeper sofa, an inflatable mattress, and another bed, with a full frame and mattress arranged in their living room, with bedding and pillows, as well as two bedrooms with set up beds as well, so only couple of us had to sleep on the floor. Their house and life for those two days was completely dedicated to us, something we definitely didn't expect, and for which I am deeply grateful.

In the morning, Tiffany and her dad, made pancakes for all of us, with bacon, sausage, syrup, juice and coffee. This, and other meals we have received is something we would have had to coordinate for ourselves if we had stayed out on the ranch. Then we were off to our activities planned for the day. First, we drove by a Mormon FLDS compound just miles away, a polygamist sect of which there was much talk on the news lately. We just want to satisfy our curiosity of seeing how it looks like from the distance, since we of course were not able (and probably wouldn't desire) to go in.

The next stop was at a horse stable, where we planned on horseback riding. My first, and only time going horseback riding was couple of years ago in Arkansas, and it took me again some time to get comfortable with being on a horse and learning how to control him. We all spent about an hour at the stable, just walking around on the horses, until everyone had a calm horse and was able to make him/her obey. Then we set on a 15-20 min horseback ride to a ranch, across dry fields, trees, and small river. My horse was rally nice and calm, once I learned how to make him listen to me. He wanted to pause few times to take few bites of grass, and then drink water from a watering barrel, which I let him do since he was so good. The girls who were riding mares had to be at a distance from us riding male horses, because they were not behaving well when close to each other, and the mares were kicking each other. It was quite cold in the morning when we started riding, but the sun was strong and we were on the horses for around 3 hours, so most people got sunburned. My knees were hurting after about an hour, and it wasn't comfortable when I'd make the horse troth, so still 2 days later my body reminds me of those 3 hours. :)
It was almost 1.30 when we left the stable. We had lunch at a very nice park by a river. We each brought our own lunch, and Zoran made me his yummy pasta with salad, which I was so looking forward to for lunch that day. We didn't have much time, because we had our next appointment.

We went to visit the Mt. Carmel Hermitage Monastery. This is a community of, currently 6, Carmelite hermits, brothers, who live a hidden life of silence and prayer and separation from the world. They gave us a brief history of the place and their order, and then took us on the tour of their chapel and living quarters. They were ready to answer all of our questions, and done so in a very peaceful and calm manner, which was obviously a result of their lifestyle. The place was quiet and peaceful, and I whish I could visit such a place for a day once in a while, just to get away from things I make myself busy with, and just be....They do have a very scheduled life, starting each day at 3.30 am! We had to say our good byes around 4, since both them and us had to prepare for the evening Mass.

We were going to celebrate the Mass with the Bishop of San Angelo diocese, Fr. Michael David Pfeifer, who is good friends with Tiffany's family. The church was set up on her grandparent's ranch, which is on the Edwards Plateau; her dad brought hay stacks for chairs, and a folding table for an altar onto a clearing between the trees and cactus's. The bishop was hearing confessions behind a bush for over an hour and it was almost 6 pm when he started the Mass. Since we knew we'd loose the daylight before the Mass was over, Mrs. Case drove their tractor to our "church" so that we could use the headlights for lighting. We had two guitars and 4 persons choir, two altar servers and one Eucharistic minister, and the bishop gave a really good homily encouraging us to participate in answering his questions. The readings were so appropriate for the setting, of Abraham offering his son as a sacrifice on the mountain, and the disciples witnessing Jesus' transfiguration on a mountain. This reading always reminds me of the international youth week in Medjugorje, where they are always read for the final Mass on Krizevac. The bishop afterwards gave a blessing with a crucifix he received from JPII on their birthday (which falls on the same day), gave us a Holy Spirit pendant, few texts, and offered to take a picture with each of us with his bishops hat. :)

Tiffany's grandparents prepared the dinner for all of us, which was supposed to be simple hamburgers. But they had a full production going on with a gas grill, a warmer, a gas heater, several high strength lights, all the fixings, huge box of verity of chips, assortment of cookies, water, soda, napkins, utensils, chairs for everybody (which was about 25 people) folding tables....again, a family that goes out of their way to make sure we were well fed and taken care of. We had a nice evening visiting with each other, fellowshiping around a very yummy meal.
By the time we were back at the house, it was already 10.30 pm, which actually was one our more with the daylight saving time starting that evening. We all slept so well that evening, after such a full day. I allowed myself even a bit extra sleep in the morning, getting up last and skipping breakfast. Everyone was giddy to get on the road, so we all packed up and said our good byes at around 11 am. On the ride back, Lindsey and I had another girl for company, and again had great conversations which made the ride go by in no time.
I am so glad I went on this trip. It was so much more than a ranch trip; it was more like a retreat.

Austin Nature Parks

With the beautiful weather we've been having in Austin lately, mom and I decided to explore some of the Austin parks. We went hiking at the Wild Basin park this weekend, and at the Walnut Creek park the weekend before.

Wedding of Norma and Juan Gil

On Saturday, January 24th 2009, Norma and Juan Gill entered into the holly covenant of marriage. Congratulations, my dear friend. May the joy of this day remain in your hearts forever. You are a true example of what God can accomplish when you put your trust in Him.