Candy making.

Easter is a fun time of year!  But most importantly, it's the celebration of the resurrection of our Lord and Savior and His triumph over death and sin.

I won't get into the mythology behind rabbits and the fertility rituals of egg but for the purposes of this post, our church is making eggs to sell and raise money for the annual Havasupai mission trip.  Every year, a small group travel from our church travel to the Grand Canyon in Arizona and assist the Native Americans with various projects and minister to the spiritual and physical needs of the church at the bottom of the canyon. Here is a short video that shows the beauty of the tribal area:

But, I digress.  Back to candymaking!  We are making 3 different kinds of eggs:  peanut butter, coconut cream, and "3M".  The 3M is a knock off of the 3 Musketeers candy bar.  It's actually a nougat candy coated with milk chocolate.  

It's a simple 4-step process:  mixing the ingredients, weighing and forming the eggs, dipping them into chocolate, and packaging.

Mixing the ingredients is always fun, but messy.

  

Weighing and forming the eggs is a tedious but important part of the process.

 After the eggs are formed, the are dipped into the chocolate.

Then, off to packaging!

Although we did not meet our goal of 1,000 eggs today, we made just shy of 700 for the couple of hours we worked.  With the eggs made in the prior season, we came even closer for a grand total of 880 eggs made!  And, since we started late in the year, we will probably have another session of egg-making to extend the "egg" season past Easter.

A very sincere thanks to everyone who participated as well as bought or sold eggs for us!!

Running. 

When I first started to try to lose weight (oh too many years ago), I tried dieting and exercise.  Aerobics, yoga, weight lifting:  been there, done that.  I occasionally walked on the treadmill, and saw all of the other people in the gym clicking off the calories, sometimes as much as 500 calories in a half hour.  And, they all seemed to be thin.

How does one get to that point?

After a lot of frustration, I did a few Internet searches.  Could there possibly be some type of running program out there for me--someone who could barely lift a 20 pound dumbbell?  And then, a miracle happened.  I found a program called "Couch to 5K."  Yep.  Sounds like a perfect fit for me!

Then, fast forward about 20 years to now.  I'm now working on my bucket list, one item which is to do the Chilli Challenge.  Well, I doubt that will happen, but I could at least put forth an effort.  After all, Rome wasn't built in a day!

So this morning, I did my first 5K, not counting the 5K that I walked several years ago.  After months of training on the treadmill, I ran in the St. Margaret Mary School 5K race.  Up hill, down hill, slight inclines, slight declines, and plenty of level running.  My time (what I recorded), was 37 minutes and 20 seconds.  And, I finished a 154th place!! 

I didn't win a medal, but I feel pretty good that I finished ahead of a hundred other people.  Yay!!