bows

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you remember why we celebrate today. It has nothing to do with bunnies distributing eggs (which they can't lay BTW, so there must be some chickens or platypus involved). It has to do with our risen Savior who took all our sins away! Today my family and grandparents ate lunch together at our house and we had delish hickory smoked honey ham, which my mom baked with pineapples. mmmmmmm. Plus amazing rice and tostones. What are tostones you may ask? Well, first of all, they are not "TOAST-TONES."  I don't know what toasted tones taste like, so don't ask. They are "TOH-STOH-NES" and they are amazing. Chopped, squashed, fried green plantains. That may not sound appetizing to you, but maybe this picture will help:

 

Doesn't that look good? Well we had that plus some rice with tiny noodles and salad, etc, In summary, a typical amazing meal cooked by my wonderful mother. Then Meylin and Mark (my older sister and her husband) came over with her little baby Julian, the most awesome nephew ever, and shared the Easter candy Mark's family gave them. Sadly my parents never picked up the tradition of Easter baskets, here in the states.Then I went for a bike ride and got to enjoy God's beautiful creation. Have you ever noticed just how perfect nature is? How everything is timed just right, and when things do go wrong, it repairs itself? It wouldn't be able to thrive so well if God hadn't created it so perfectly. Just another reason to be thankful for His work on the cross, without it, we wouldn't be here to enjoy it! And that would be a bummer. I feel like we should celebrate that day everyday, not just Easter weekend. Anyways, speaking of perfection, today, while everyone was taking a nap, I was preparing some gift bags to sell at a yard sale my church is doing for a mission trip we are going on this summer (more on that later). Well, I had to tie bows on them, and after seeing how perfect my mom's example one was, I figured I had to make mine match. Well, if you don't know me, hard as I might, I am not good at stuff like that. I prefer messy beauty, like a bunch of curled ribbon, or splatter paint, Stuff that no matter how you throw it, it's perfect :) Needless to say, these bows took me FOREVER. The longer I went, the less I tried. Eventually I realized that when I didn't think about it, and just let my fingers move automatically, the better they came out! SURPRISE! Isn't that awesome and weird? They looked natural and more pretty. Which got me thinking that things like that happen a lot in life. I love to control things, just ask anybody. I don't like not knowing what's going to happen and try to ensure things work out the way they are supposed to (or at least I think they should). That's why I already have a wrinkle on my forehead. ;) But when I let go and trust God to make things happened, and when I am more open-minded, I'm usually pleasantly surprised! Goodness, and to think it took tying a million bows to figure it out. Literally, I felt like Minnie in her "bowtique"... playhouse Disney...anyone?