Happy Easter!

Lent seems like it's the longest period of time ever and then suddenly, it's over! This was only my second time participating and it went way better than last year. Let's review what I committed to:
So this year I'm doing candy. All small wrapped hard or soft candy, chocolates, chocolate bars, you name it, I'm not eating it. Just cutting out very identifiable sugary sweets. 

And I did! Did I give up sugar entirley? Not by a long shot. I still had dessert every night on the cruise and I still baked at home but I didn't eat ANY hard or soft candy, chocolates, chocolate bars etc. Candy is EVERYWHERE and it was good to be aware of it. It was actually a lot easier to pass up than I thought it would be and a lot easier to avoid than cheese was last year.

I think my biggest accomplishment was giving up Candy Crush. I deleted it off my phone and never looked back. The withdrawl from that was HARD. I ended up surfing Pinterest a lot more than usual initially but after awhile even that went back to normal. I will allow myself to eat candy again but I won't be re-downloading Candy Crush so that's a big accomplishment.

I did start using Instagram a lot more www.instagram.com/agent_713 but it's because I was participating in the rethinkchurch.org's 2015 Lent photo-a-day-words challenge which I have found to be deeply rewarding.

Lent is supposed to be a period of reflection on the sacrifice that Jesus made for us and on Easter we celebrate the sweetness of his resurrection. As I re-introduce (limited amounts of) candy, I will savour that sweetness and be reminded of the joy that only he brings.

Happy Easter everyone.

Random Easter Memories

I suppose any annual event makes you think about past ones but today I'm reminiscing about past Easters. When I was a kid the chocolate was there but the emphasis was, as with every Sunday, always on church. Doing an Easter egg hunt was always a bit awkward because it was either completed in a hurry before church (like the picture) or we had to wait until after which was just painful :P

Because we moved a fair bit, Easter is very much associated with the house we were living in at the time. For example I know, from our ages and the angle that this was the house on Harwood. I very clearly remember the excitement of finding our chocolates in Mom and Dad's closet too. And our "baskets" that were actually empty Becel margarine tubs :)

The year we were on Astoria we had our hunt in the back yard. That summer we found a stray chocolate egg in the dryer vent. Somehow we had missed it and by then it was very melted. Ooops!

One year on Perth we had to do the hunt in the living room because it was POURING rain outside.

When I got older it was less about the chocolate and more about the fact that I had a long weekend and it was a great time to travel. In 2000 I visited Ontario for the first time and in 2007 I was in Texas. It is crazy to think that I now LIVE in Ontario (I joked about moving back then but I never, ever would have done it) and it floors me that Texas was five years ago already.

Easter is obviously about much more than chocolate or travel. After this weekend my heart is full of thanksgiving, love and new memories as I look back five years, twelve, twenty some and two thousand to where it all began.