Life's Lessons: Never Lick a Knife Clean... Even When It Has Peanut Butter On It

Coloring eggs. A past-time shared the world over (I saw my host mother bought egg dye, so even here in Germany!) it creates beautiful works of art... until consumed or thrown out. Now, there are some beautiful, and I mean beautiful, works of art created on chicken eggs, for example Pysanky eggs made in Ukraine, and even at home with petroleum based food dyes (yes, I know, organic over here) and glitter. For the record, you can make your own all-natural egg dyes, which I think has a much nicer, less fake, look to them. However I really like the idea of making eggs that will last a very long time, or forever as the case may be. There are several options to create a long-lasting egg. You can blow out your own egg, which I think is nice but a little time consuming. Plus if you want to make a dozen eggs, you have to find something to do with all of the yolks and whites afterwards, and then you have to plug up the holes you made. There are also many plastic, Styrofoam (not even worth mentioning), and wooden eggs that you can decorate, but plastic isn't very easy to decorate and wood has a similar issue, unless you are an expert wood-burner or have the proper wood paint. I discovered a cotton-based craft egg which I thought was a brilliant idea, and proceeded to buy eight of them at 50 cents a piece. I purchased a few more decorating goodies, and tested out my first egg when I got home. About a half hour later, gorgeousness was born. I got all the kids to make one, and I have shared my masterpieces below with directions.

All the supplies you'll need for the craft, except for maybe a piece of newspaper for clean-up.

Non-Edible Decorated Easter Eggs

Supplies:

Cotton Based Egg(s)

Small Paint Brush

Varnish Glue (Modge Podge will work)

Thin Paper (I used brightly colored origami paper, but you can also use pretty much anything that isn't crepe paper, tissue paper, poster paper, or construction paper. You can try, but I'm not sure it will have the same effect.)

Instructions:

1. Choose your colors. I wouldn't pick any more than three.

2. Take your base color, or whichever color you'd like to use first if you're doing a two-toned/speckled egg, and rip the paper (not cut) into irregular shapes only slightly bigger than the eraser of a pencil.

3. Take your egg, and starting at the top, brush a small, medium thickness amount of glue. Take a piece of your ripped up paper (I found it easiest to dab a piece with my glue brush to pick it up) put it on the area of the egg where you brushed glue, and brush additional glue over it.

4. Continue the process by brushing more glue over the egg and overlapping paper pieces in a mosaic-esque format until your egg is the way you'd like it to look. Be sure to brush glue over the pieces as well.

5. Allow to dry thoroughly. You may think that the egg will look funny because of the glue, but just let it dry.

6. Once dry, you can cut out shapes or designs out of more paper and glue/varnish them onto the egg for more decoration.

7. Admire!

These are my finished eggs. I have one more egg that I'm thinking about making.

Continuing on the topic of crafts, today I have decided to try a new craft I discovered online. (If you guys aren't familiar with Stumble Upon, you should check it out. It's not a site on crafts, actually, it's a site on... well, everything.) This craft is very simple: take broken pieces of crayon, unwrap them, glue them on the top of a piece of poster board or cardboard, take a hairdryer and blow onto the crayons and watch what happens! I got the littlest girl to help me with the gluing of the pieces. I honestly did not know if this was going to work, but the two youngest were amazed! (And me too, I'll admit.) I'm definitely going to try this again, but with a little more form and a lot more crayons.

Art. I have a few ideas for making this look even cooler, so I'll keep everyone updated.

Everyone knows I love crafts and, of course, food. Being organic and trying to eat a naturally sustainable meal, I got the idea for my most recent dish, believe it or not, from Bill Nye the Science Guy. I really love the show and I've decided to watch all five seasons in its entirety online. Anyway, in his "nutrition" episode he spoke about people who have eaten rice and beans together for centuries because of it's complimentary proteins equaling complete proteins. (For those who are not into science, a piece of meat would contain proteins that are complete for nutrition in your body. Rice and beans both contain proteins. Separately they are not enough to sustain your body but together they form a complete protein. So rice and beans are complementary proteins creating a complete protein for your body. This is how vegetarians are able to receive their needed amount of proteins.) So this being said, and probably needing the protein, I combined my favorite rice (black) and favorite beans (also black) to make a bean and rice dish, which was, you guessed it, all black! I prepared the rice in chicken broth instead of water, soaked the black beans overnight then boiled them until mostly soft (I got impatient), added some cumin, chili powder, and rosemary (with salt and pepper, of course), then took an immersion blender and made it pasty. Rice on the bottom, beans on the top, and a dollop of plain yogurt (instead of sour cream, it really does taste the same!) and I had an absolutely delicious meal... enough to last me a week or more! I don't have a picture of it for this post because I had left my camera up in my room, but will take one for the next post. I do, however, have pictures of the vegetarian Reuben I made. I made it an open-faced sandwich, so the rye bread is on the bottom. I have decided for my next dish I will be making pita pizzas! Those should be delicious. By the way, for those wondering about the title of this blog post, as a healthy snack today I was eating an apple with peanut butter... or rather the other way around. I got a little carried away with the peanut butter.

Reuben, with the sauce unmixed on the side.

Reuben, plus addition of the sauce. I will be making this again I'm sure.

Spring is finally here, so playing outside is a must for this family. I'm learning that the children vary on their enjoyment of the outdoors. The oldest seems to enjoy it quite a bit, the middle child, the boy, can go with or without it (doesn't really mind either way), and the youngest would rather stay inside, but if she is told to do so and is in a pretty okay mood, she'll do it, if not, it's a struggle until she really gets into being outside. I enjoy playing with the children (and their friends, whenever they are around) outside, but the outdoors for me has always been an experience beyond experience. I love to watch the birds, I love feeding the birds, I like to stare at the sky, I like to climb things, I love swimming, I love walking around aimlessly, I like to stare at the worms after a rainstorm, I like to stick blades of grass onto spiderwebs, I like getting lost, picnics are fun (combination food, creativity [organizing everything], and outdoors!), flying kites make me feel good... but for a small backyard, many of these things aren't possible. The host mother seems not so enthusiastic about me taking the children around to explore (I really don't know why), so I get to stare at the children and make sure they don't fall off of the swing-set. And the little boy tries to push me into the grass when I'm supposed to stay on the sidewalk. Occasionally we'll go to the park but the toys of choice are Frisbee and ball with tail. Basically a larger backyard. I'd like to teach the kids kickball or another equally American sport (Kan Jam!), but I would also like for the children to enjoy it. So the next project for myself is figure out an outdoor activity they'll love, but I'll enjoy too.

Lastly, the subject of vacationing. I think I may go to Salzburg, Austria tomorrow and spend the day. For those of you who don't know, Salzburg is where "The Sound of Music" was filmed and where Mozart was born. It's a beautiful looking city, and I may spend the day there tomorrow to get some authentic Austrian experience. Plus it's only an hour and a half away. Also, I am actively trying to plan my Paris vacation, which isn't going so well due to prices and timing. I'm working on it though. And, of course, Athens is just around the corner.

Below I have included two pictures: one of my current plant situation, and the other of the first true German butterfly I saw on my way home from school on Wednesday.

Enjoy!

My plants are really growing... but I lost another bean plant. Hopefully the last three will be fine.

I'm not sure what kind of butterfly it is, but it's beautiful. Happy Spring!