Easter Facts

Here are some Easter Facts that I found on the web. I found them quite interesting.

Easter is the second most important candy-eating occasion of the year for Americans, who consumed 7 billion pounds of candy in 2001, according to the National Confectioner's Association.

In 2000, Americans spent nearly $1.9 billion on Easter candy, while Halloween sales were nearly $2 billion;Christmas, an estimated $1.4 billion; and Valentines Day, just over $1 billion.
Ninety million chocolate Easter bunnies are produced each year.
Chocolate bunnies should be eaten ears first, according to 76% of Americans. Five percent said bunnies should be eaten feet first, while 4% favored eating the tail first.
Adults prefer milk chocolate (65%), to dark chocolate (27%).

Millions of Peeps
Each Easter season, Americans buy more than 700 million Marshmallow Peeps, shaped like chicks, as well as Marshmallow Bunnies and Marshmallow Eggs, making them the most popular non-chocolate Easter candy.
As many as 4.2 million Marshmallow Peeps, bunnies, and other shapes can be made each day.

In 1953, it took 27 hours to create a Marshmallow Peep. Today it takes six minutes.
Yellow Peeps are the most popular, followed by pink, lavender, blue, and white.
Jellybeans Could Circle the Globe
Americans consume 16 billion jellybeans at Easter, many of them hidden in baskets. If all the Easter jellybeans were lined end to end, they would circle the globe nearly three times.

Jellybeans did not become an Easter tradition until the 1930s. They were probably first made in America by Boston candy maker William , who ran advertisements urging people to send jellybeans to soldiers fighting in the Civil War.
70% of kids aged 6–11 say they prefer to eat Easter jellybeans one at a time, while 23% report eating several at once. Boys (29%) were more apt to eat a handful than girls (18%).

Children indicate their favorite Easter jellybean flavors are cherry (20%), strawberry (12%), grape (10%), lime (7%), and blueberry (6%).



Blessings till I post again

Happy Easter

Easter is just a few hours away. I love Easter, it's not about the chocolates and colored eggs. But it is a celebration of the greatest even in history. I always found it funny that they show the ten commands at Easter. I mean Easter is about the death, burial and Resurrection of Jesus. Why don't they show that? Don't get me wrong, it is a great movie, but I just find it funny. I always enjoyed Easter growing up, because spring is around the corner. They say we are already into spring, but you would not know that looking outside. It was so cold today and grey and gloomy. My idea of spring is the bright green grass, sunny Sky's and the green coming back into the leafs on the trees. There are some sings of this going on, but I sure would like it better if it were in full bloom. Regardless, I know that I will have a good Easter.

Emmanuel spent the night with us Friday night. And today we went to Mazda in Louisville to get Sheila's Oil changed. It turned into an all day event. We ended up crossing the road and headed for the Oxmoore Mall. As we entered Macy's we spotted a car fire in the entrance to the mall. That just made Emmanuel's day. He was very concerned and questioned every shopper as they entered "Has anyone called 911?" I think he told everyone he knew about this strange event. He was very joyful in the fact that he was a witness to this event because "I never saw a car fire before". He also spotted an escalator and he wanted to ride it so bad because he "Never rode one of those before." I think that he has and his Dad says that he has, but after today he can not say anymore that he has not rode an escalator before. Because it is well documented now.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Easter tomorrow. The best one this year :)

Blessings till I post again.

3rd Times a Charm

Tonight is my 3rd night I came down here to blog and I finally got around to doing it. The other two nights I got distracted by my exercise bike. I have failed at blogging daily, but I am going to try to get back into the swing of things. I have a very good excuse for last night because I did horrible in keeping my calories in tact. I went over by 800 yesterday. We had a taco day at work and I admit that I went overboard. And as always I did what I felt necessary. Yep I came home and spent 2 hours working out. I feel better about myself when I keep it at my 2175 calories. I beat my self up all day yesterday and could not wait to get home to exercise. I had planned on coming home and taking a nap, but it did not happen. I also planned on taking a nap tonight, but I got side tracked by doing laundry, dishes and making dinner (frozen pizza). So maybe that nap will come tomorrow night. (Yeah right).

It seems that we live in a rain forest, because all it has done is rain for the past 2 days. If this keeps up I may have to start on that ark (just kidding of course) and even if I did build an ark we all know that it would sink like the titanic. Which reminds me that the titanic was built by professionals and the ark was built by an amature. So maybe our doctors should just be amatures? Ummm maybe not.

I'll try to keep up with my posts better in the future. I took the advice of a friend who said that I should probably write down what I want to blog about. Well I have been doing that, but as I predicted those notes are still laying on my desk at work. Oh well, Guess I need to try harder huh.

Blessings till I post again.

Carmel Cake and a Snow Fort.

What a great weekend I had. My nephews spent the majority of it with us. Emmanuel spent the night Saturday night. RM said he was going to but changed his mind. But Saturday was packed with Emmanuel playing games non stop. At one point I made him turn them off so we could bake a cake. I thought it might be better for him to have some interaction with something other than a television. I had to improvise with the frosting. We did not have any prepared frosting so I got out a cook book and let Emmanuel pick a recipe that we could make with the limited ingredients that we had. We made a white cake with Carmel frosting. The cake was a box mix, but the frosting was home made. I have to admit it was very good. Next time I am in the mood for a home made cake it will have to be another Carmel cake. mmmmmmmm mmmmmm good.

With the time change Emmanuel was up at 12:40 new time, but really it was still 11:40. I finally told him it was time to go to bed. I think he would have stayed up all night if I had let him. He really enjoys spending time with us. I'm not sure why we are so special. But he likes it over here so who am I to judge. We also made time to go out to make a snow fort in the yard. I have pictures of the fort and the cake that I will post at a later time. I just have to get the pictures off the camera and have not got around to doing that yet.

Blessings till I Post again

Shopping cart's and "snow"

I went to Krogers this evening because we needed to get a few things to "survive" the next few days if we get snowed in. I think that the grocery store some how is directly involved with the weaterman to scare us to run out and buy groceries. Needless to say the store was packed. I went in the front and saw a lady and her daughter. (so I thought). anyway there were only 2 carts left. The carts were stuck together and they were both trying their hands at getting them apart. I was about to offer my services when the older lady got the carts apart. Both Ladies claimed the two remaining carts. It would have been nice if they would have told me that they both needed the carts. That would have saved me 5 mins of waiting and watching them struggle to get them apart. oh well, thats life. My search for a cart would thus continue. I headed back out to the parking lot and found a cart without an owner and finally my grocery store shopping could begin. I think people get stupid when the store reaches capacity. I passed the 2 shopping cart ladies several times and really wanted to say something, but I kept my cool. I headed to the check out lanes which were to my surprise fully operational. I think there were only 2 lanes that did not have a cashier. But Me and my 7 items would have to wait in a line that stretched clear across the store. I finally checked out and headed back to a home that was not full to capacity and I was fine with that. My guess is that the 5 - 12 inches that we are to have tomorrow will end up being a dusting. Time will tell.

Blessings till I post again.

R.I.P Fred

This afternoon I went outside to clean out the pond. I've been trying to keep it clean any chance I get because we are still getting a lot of leafs in it right now. After getting all the leafs out I noticed Fred was missing. I searched the entire pond several times and could not find him. I looked around the pond thinking he may have leaped out of the water during the night. This happend once before to Ethel. After Ethel jumped out I built up the rock walls around the pond to make sure this did not happen again. But my search still came up without finding Fred. I though to myself, did I scoop him out by mistake? So I searched the pile of leafs that I had scooped out. Still no Fred. I called Sheila at work to tell her that we were Fredless. She said maybe he was hiding. But I assured her that if he was hiding he was doing it well because I went through the pond several times. He is a Big fish and there are not many hiding spots for him. I finally gave up the search and figured that he either was taken by a neighborhood kid or an animal got him in the night. I just saw him yesterday so I know that he has not been MIA for very long. I ended up leaving the "search for Fred" and came in to play some wii and then ride my bike. I then did some laundry and Sheila finally came home from work. She to searched for Fred and came up with nothing. Later she went to babysit for a friend of ours. While she was gone I decided that I needed to resume the Fred search. Before doing this I headed for the bathroom. I looked out the window and noticed something by a tree. At first glance I thought it was a mangled bird. HMMM I thought, looks like a bird got into a fight with a cat and lost. I was not wearing my glasses. So I picked up my glasses and headed out to further investigate. The search for Fred was finally over. The "Mangled Bird" that I had saw in the window tured out to be Fred. A headless Fred in fact. So my original theory of the neighborhood kid stealing Fred was now busted. My best guess is that we may have had a racoon or a cat do some fishing late last night. He must have not been to hungry because he sure didn't take much of Fred. Maybe Fred didn't taste as good as he thought. Or maybe this animal is on a strick 1500 calorie diet like I had been for almost 2 years. Who Knows! The long and the short of it is that we are down to 3 fish now. Our Flintstone crew is now without a leader. For those of you who do not know the names of our fish were all based on the Flintstones. How that came to pass was when Ethel passed away my mother got me 3 new fish and my nephew asked me what the name of the survivor fish was. I told him Fred and he then decided that the new fish would be Barny, Betty and Wilma. That was a different spin on Fred and Ethel who got their names from I Love Lucy.
I told my nephew about the missing Fred earlier today and I have not told him the discovery I made. I think I will keep that to myself with him. He is a very sensative child and I don't think it would be best for me to tell him of my discovery. When I told him he was sad. He thought an animal might have got him. He thinks it is a cat and does not believe that Racoons are in "these parts" as he put it. I told him I spotted a Racoon at the end of the summer. So he decided that Racoons could "Survive" in "These Parts" after all. Funny how kids minds work. So He told me that he will just have to replace Fred for me. He said "I have a hundred dollars, I think" That should be more than enough to replace Fred. Well I thought that Fred was priceless, but as it turns out less than a hundred dollars is more than enough for a Fish called Fred.

Blessings till I post again.