Anne's tricks for Ukrainian Easter Eggs (Pysanky)

It's that time of year when I clear off my craft table, pull a box out from under my bed and set up to go back to my roots. It's Ukranian Easter Egg time!!!

A lot of people say "painted eggs". This is incorrect. They're made with a wax resist method. Meaning you cover the color you want to keep as opposed to covering the white area you want to hide. So it's backwards, in a sense. If you've ever written your name in that white crayon found in common easter egg kits, and it magically shows up afterward...well, this is the same thing, but a bit more elaborate.

What I love most about this tradition is that I was raised to make them for gifts only. To give the egg away is to give the gift of the meaning behind the symbols to the recipient. To keep them removes those blessings from your own life. Superstitious I know, but that's what I was told growing up. If nothing else, it makes me happy to see someone admire my work and I can tell them "Here, take it and enjoy.".

I've spent every year scouring my mom's stack of designs and books and pamphlets collected over the last 40 years and more recently, through the internet. On a typical year, I'll make a dozen eggs.  I love finding sites were masters offer their tips and tricks. I don't feel that I'm particularly a master, but I have some tricks of my own passed down through my grandmother and also just from trial and error. I hope this helps.

Disclaimer: This is not a step by step process for pysanky. Merely a collection of tips. I'm only sharing my personal experience of what works, not endorsing anything.

White: Fine, Blue: Medium, Red: Thick

Where do you get your special supplies?
I live in Seattle. And the best place I've found is the University Bookstore (associated with UW). They sell individual dyes, modern and traditional kistkas, and entire starter kits. I'm a fan of modern Delrin kistkas and have never tried an electric kistka, but i hear they are amazing. For large chunks of beeswax, check out a craft store candle making section. They usually sell 1 pound blocks that will last you 4 or 5 years. I break mine up into reasonable chunks with a hatchet or a hot knife. 
I've also had no trouble ordering through this website: http://www.ukrainiangiftshop.com/

What kind of eggs should i use?
If you're just starting, plain white eggs from your grocery store are perfect. White eggs are better because brown eggs will make the dye colors different. My mom swears by "fresh from the chicken's butt" eggs and goes searching all over for them. Whatever floats your boat. Always, always allow your eggs to come to room temperature. Condensation will not allow the wax to stick properly. As you get more advanced, try duck eggs and goose eggs, though be aware of what size jar you have your dye in. 

How do you store your dyes and for how long?
Wide mouth mason jars are your friend. I get them from Ace Hardware. I keep them in the cardboard divided box they come in and i have 10-12 colors at any time. Every year, the first thing i do is shake each dye and look for "floaties". Light dyes almost always have them, replace them. Check darker ones with a white plastic spoon. Then I do a tester egg. I divide an egg, label each section for a color while its still white, and put it through the dye progression (light to dark) using a wire egg lifter from a grocery store kid's easter egg kit. Slowly, I cover each  labeled section before placing it in the next dye. That tells me what colors are still good. If a color looks odd or is way too light, I dump it and make a new batch. Every other year, I will usually refresh all my colors just to be safe, but if they're still true to the colors, you can go longer. 

Why light to dark?
The color progression goes light to dark because you're replacing the dye at each level. If you put a lot of yellow eggs in a red dye, it will become orangy over time, but go the opposite direction and the dye will turn orangy a lot faster. So light to dark limits the visibility of color contamination. 

How do you keep your lines straight in pencil?
For lines through the middle of the egg (in any direction) i use a 1/4" thick rubber band and trace along its edge. It's a little tricky to hold, so pillow some paper towels under your hand just in case. 
For the side, nothing compares to Wayne Schmidt's toilet paper roll method:



An upgrade from a standard candle:
Candles are the traditional method, and they work well. But another option I like is an Alcohol Torch. It's a medical tool and it burns clean, steady and there's no smoke or wax drips. This is not a good idea around children because the flame is less visible. I got mine off of Amazon for about 15$. It requires high proof alcohol (91%) which I get at a drug store in the first aid section (standard is 70%). Just be careful and it's a handy tool.


My kistka is clogged! What can I do?
My white kistka gets clogged occasionally. First i'll empty the well back onto my beeswax clump. Then i'll heat the kistka until it's really smoking (not on fire). Then i plunge the point into the middle of the beeswax clump several times, reheating as necessary. After that, fill the well with a little beeswax and test it on a practice egg or practice paper to see if the flow has returned. This has always worked for me, but my mom also keeps a super fine wire to feed up the point, which is another method.

When do I empty my egg? And how?
At the end. Why? Because the innards of the egg will help it sink in the dye. At the end of the dye process, I will cover the entire egg in a thin coat of beeswax (Fill the well, heat it super hot, then flip it over so the wide end is down and smear it, reheating often, you'd be surprised how much you can cover with just a few well fulls and a hot kistka). This is overkill but I don't like to take risks with my pysanky. The egg white will ruin the dye so on the off chance I might get a little on my hand, I cover the egg. If you're doing big eggs, this may be impractical, so cover at least the top and bottom 1/4 of the egg. 
Make the hole: I've tried those egg drill that comes in the kit - they suck in my opinion. I don't have a dremel and no...a drill bit in a screwdriver doesn't work well, it cracks the egg from pressure. I do it like my mom taught me: With a corsage pin: the one with the big pearl on the end? yeah. Press the pin in firmly making 4 hole like a square. Then 4 more holes between those to make it more circular. Then more holes between those until you have a little dotted circle. Keep pushing between the holes until the perforation breaks all the way around. I do both top and bottom.
Empty the egg: I've used those yellow squeeze pumps. They work just fine. Just be careful to not suck egg backwards up the nozzle. But, I usually just use my mouth. The beeswax prevents the dye from getting on my lips as I blow in the top, and the egg part flows out the bottom. If you're worried about salmonella, use the pump. 

How do you display the eggs?
Honestly, we just get clear napkin rings from bed bath and beyond. They're the perfect size and while not as nice as the guilted pedestal you see in specialty stores, they're effective and still look nice. We have been gifted several from friends thanking my mom or me for teaching them. They have a special place in my mom's china cabinet (they've been emptied so they won't explode).

Through my father's side, I'm 1/4 Ukrainian. Ironically though, it's my mother, who has no Ukrainian heritage, that has passed on this tradition to me. My father's mother (full blood Ukrainian) taught my mother soon after they were married, finding that she had artistic talent. I think I started picking it up around 7 or 8 years old and have looked forward to it every year since. I hope I eventually have a kid to pass this onto myself.

All of these were made in the traditional wax resist method by me. No paint was involved.

I love the tradition and craftsmanship of this method. It's not unusual for me to sit for 4 or 5 hours, working on 2 or 3 eggs at a time. Truly, I enjoy it that much. I only do it for the few weeks of April, leading up to Easter, then the box goes back into storage until next year.

When Facebook was for college students

When Facebook was for college students:

Friending wasn't a guilt trip.

• Yes, obscure relative, we are related by blood, but that doesn't mean i want to know what you did in FARM-VILLE every day (even if it's not the AP that's loading the status). Nor do i want you to hear about the dirty joke that was between my friends that you're going to write me an email about how crude you find it. 
• Your parent's had no idea what it was and were content to leave you alone about it. Now they want to be your friend and if you don't accept, it's grounds for them being mad at you. No mom, just because i write that i'm out with friends doesn't mean i'm an alcoholic. 

No friend requests from 10 year olds

• You are not 19. No way no how. I went to your birthday party and it was a Zero, not a Nine next to that one. Also, you're in elementary school. I don't care when the next Justin Beiber concert is. STOP POKING ME! No, i will NOT friend you. Because i don't want you subjected to the topics you're too young for, and i don't want to have to censor myself on the off chance that you might see it. 

Lots of games that were visible, distracting, and fun for hours on end. 

• Now they're hard to navigate to so it's not as enticing to play.

It wasn't blocked by company filters

• Facebook whenever you want!

People you want to talk with.

• The only people on there were other college students. Talking about things college students find interesting or humorous. People who respond to a political joke with an appropriate Lol, instead of taking it personally and then berating you about your all of your political views are wrong. Yes, i'm thinking of you Uncle R!

You are not reported by your friends to your parents for using the F word. 

• Yes, this happened to me. And led to a several month long grudge from my parents because I embarrassed them. 

I know it won't happen, but i wish Facebook would go back to the way it was(especially because i already graduated). I guess it's time to beef up my privacy settings again. 

Unwritten Recipes

Oh my goodness, i actually have kept a promise to myself. I bought cookbooks for small portions. I truly love to cook, but i feel like it's not cost effective (and i'm also very tired after working 10 hours) most of the time. But that's about to change. With the rent increase, i have promised to start eating at home a LOT more. And that called for some new cookbooks. These are the three i got. They had the highest recommendations (and they were cheap via Amazon). 


I'm excited to go through them with Boyfriend Jon and mark the ones we want to try. 

My family had six people in it. Not to mention the neighbor from behind us, the multitude of young boys in the neighborhood, my brother's friend Tommy who practically lived with us, and all the other people who frequented our dining room table. Dad was the cook in the family, and we were blessed to never be short on delicious, filling, food. 


Eggplant Parmesan, Spaghetti and my mother's meatballs (she can't cook most meat cuts very well, but she does incredible, divine things with ground meat), Pirogies, Halupcha (cabbage meat-wraps cooked in tomato juice), stir fry, Jeager Schnitzel, Paprika Chicken, Egg flour vegetable soup....the list goes on. 


But not a single dish has a recipe that's written down. We all learned how to cook by practice....and by feeding a full table. So it's very little of a wonder to me that all of us kids have trouble cooking for just a small table. 6-10 person dinner party = no problem. Cooking a real meal for just ourselves, or a dinner for two = lots of leftovers.


It should be easy, just use less ingredients right? So how do you do that when you don't use measuring utensils? I mean, how do you half an egg? Not to mention, dad still has kept some of his recipes secret. It took me over a decade to get his icing recipe out of him. And some of his recipes were created out of necessity. 


One of his most famous recipes is called "Mussgo". And it's easy to make. You open your fridge and say "this Muss-go, and this muss-go..." (Muss go = "must go"...as in it's been in there for a week already). You put it in a wok, stir fry it all together, and serve. 


Sometimes it was good, sometimes it wasn't. Whenever we'd ask dad what's for dinner, if we'd been unruly he'd grunt and say "Mussgo" to stem off any more questions. And we'd spend the rest of the day trying to get out of the house to have an excuse to eat at a friend's place. 


Someday...i'll use these tricks on my own children i'm sure. 

Last night, I had a major craving. Olive Garden's Chicken and Gnocchi soup. So trying to cook at home more, i looked up a copycat recipe. Oh internet, where would i be without you? 


Looking back on the math now, it would have been more cost effective to go to Olive Garden and get it for take out. But $80 later and many staple groceries heavier, i got back to my place and got to chopping, slicing, dicing, mincing and cooking. 


Finally by 7:30 it was ready. It was worth the wait. ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS, even without the Gnocchi/dumplings which i couldn't find. 

Someday...

We all have dreams about our future life, things we want to own or do...


There's most often no real "plan" to get there, but there are small highlights that are incredibly impractical, but you'd love to have anyway. For some, it's a boat, or a house with a pool, or as silly as a entire room filled with play pen balls (minus unpleasant surprises). 


For me, I've always wanted a fiber optic star ceiling that twinkles. I'm not talking a random pattern...no, i'm talking a near-perfect replica of the nigh sky. Milky way and all. I don't care if it's in a home theater, a children's room, or above my own bed. I want one. 


So what's stopping me? Oh yeah, i'm a 20 something with a limited income and a rented apartment. So no customizing the ceiling allowed. 


That, and i'm not very good at small electrical. Give me a 220 cable, a drill and a pair of pliers (amongst other things of course) and i can wire up a kitchen. Wiring a new light fixture in a house...no problem. But building a small light source....is not my forte. I've lit a couple things on fire from light sources before. 


I find these DIY walkthroughs (through Boyfriend Jon's favorite: Lifehacker) and think to myself "I could totally take the time to poke through that many fibers", or "I would use this other material for that part to make it easier". But then i get to the part where you have to wire up the light source and i have to stop. I avoid projects like these. It just doesn't come naturally to me. 


Doesn't mean it curbs my yearning. I look at this and dream of what will someday be if i have my druthers:

Classic Games

Cousins can teach you all sorts of things. Movies your parents will never let you see, a new set of video games, and how much fun you can have with a simple stick...i mean magic powerful staff of awesomeness.

My cousins lived on the side of a large hill, surrounded by forests, coyotes, free roaming deer, and it was almost a mile from the main road to their house. Their "driveway" was where i first learned to drive despite the constant jostling of potholes in their gravel road as we announced our arrival with a glaring "ARRROOOOOOGAAAA" horn my dad had salvaged from an old car. Later, I learned how to drive their manual transmission tractor when trying to pave down some of those potholes when they got "Really bad".....which means our car got high centered.

We usually stayed over a weekend, so our adventures as kids were as follows: Daytime - outside, each of us with some kind of "weapon" fending off the valley from dragons, trolls, our brothers, bears, harpies, and the dog who would get a little rambunctious in our fort. Dusk - rush inside and snag what food we could before retreating downstairs to play video games, or watch forbidden movies while the adults remained blissfully ignorant and left us to our own devices. The next day would repeat until we went home, while the dog chased us down the driveway.

It was here that i was introduced to things like Kings Quest, Sims, Myst, Super Smash Brothers, Mario kart, and a variety of other games. But mostly, in this post i want to talk about Kings Quest.

Thanks to Influence Bad (also introduced to me by these cousins) for introducing me to DOS emulators, and reminding me how many hours i wasted on this game.

Yeah, by wasted, i mean downloaded again and am playing again and wasting more hours following around Prince Alexander, in his garish costume and dainty yellow scarf which he somehow managed to retain despite a SHIP WRECK as he searches for Princess Cassima, who's being driven so crazy locked in her tower that she's talking to birds.

Man i love this game!

Even now, more than a decade later, i'm still remembering little quirks about this game: Like if you keep touching the rotten tomato in your pack, it insults you.

Other news:

Back to the saw dust. I ended up adding the coffee table to the project list with the pair of end tables. Since they're made the same, and have all the same cuts, just at different lengths, it made sense to do it at the same time. Dad agreed and we're going over the cut list tonight to get everything in order. With any amount of luck, these will be BUILT this week or next. Then i can get onto finishing, sanding, staining and varnishing which i don't need a second set of hands for.

Jump start on spring cleaning

Given that there is a light dusting of snow on the ground right now, "spring cleaning" is just a euphemism for "My apartment is messy again and i need to clean it by Friday".

Molly, the Wallet Thief/Poop machine dog, will be returning to my apartment starting this weekend. Although it will just be for half of a day before she goes back to my sister's place, i still need to dog proof it again so she doesn't go all insane on me again. I was of the opinion that she will love anyone who gives her food and pays her the slightest attention. But Miss Molly had other plans. My mom, or family dog whisperer, thinks that because Molly is a rescue, that she has some anxieties about being in strange places and she shows those anxieties by....removing food from her system ASAP. But, since my parents and my sister will be out on overlapping vacations in a couple months, it's important that we get her used to coming over to my apartment minus the anxieties.

Taking care of Rusty on the other hand is simple. He's like a cat. Feed him on time, pet him and otherwise let him sleep and he's golden. So we're starting Molly on a weekly scale and trying some old tricks like blankets that smell like my sister to see if we can curb some of the less pleasant results.

On the plus side, since she's only coming over after work until my sister gets home...if she does decide to have 3 am diarrhea...i won't be the one cleaning it up. This is a GOOD plan :)

This will be a weekly deal though, starting one day, maybe going over night, so i need to keep my place tidy or within a few minutes of cleaning up. So I decided to start doing some purging. I already Craigslist-ed a multitude of other things that were just taking up room and letting me stack papers on top of it.

The only problem with this plan is that now i have no where to put the stuff that was on top of/inside of/carefully balanced by these things. Now, it's all just in a heap on the floor...mostly in my bedroom. When i can't walk around my bed to the other side...that's a problem. As in, why, for instance, do i still have the unbroken down box that the most beautiful red kitchen aid in the world came in......IN MY BEDROOM?

Tonight is cleaning up the remains of my staining/varnish project and putting away my tools. Then i'll give the kitchen a good wipe down and check the floor for things Molly might think are treats. When that's done, i'll probably clean out my fridge. I know of two science experiments in my freezer that I've been pretending don't exist.

After that will be the bedroom tackle project where i will strive to whip my possessions back into an orderly fashion. Also part of this plan is purging my clothing of things that done fit or are ripped...which i haven't done in about 2 years. So i called in my girly girl sister to not only give me a second opinion, but to fold the "keep" pile for me...cause she's got that awesome quirk of loving to fold clothes.

Also, I bought a summer themed bed in a bag kit. Cause while i LOVE my gorgeous red Ikea duvet cover, with all the dark furniture in my room, it makes things feel depressing in summer. But with Target's "Jasmine" kit...it'll be light and soothing for summer months. Except i ordered a full size and after reading the reviews, i'm thinking i should have ordered a queen size. I'll see when it gets here.

It's the attack of self taught HTML

Me+HTML= bad combination.

However, thanks to the world of the internet, even someone as inept as me can figure out how to make things like bold, strikeouts, tables, column widths, and tweak certain things about pre-made templates.

I'm in awe of people who can do this all day every day. I humbly bow to your superior skill and enormous amounts of patience. Just reading all the acronyms gives me a headache. tb, table border, tr, table row. I would rather just do an excel sheet. Which, i'm very aware has a very similar code running in the background.

Thank you so much to those who put in the time and effort to make my life easier so that I don't have to speak HTML on a daily basis. You have no idea how much I appreciate that.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programing!

There's been a Rant and Raves tab at the top for quite some time. But due to the obnoxious way I originally had this laid out, it was rather difficult to look at. I tried colors, different lines....but what i really needed all along was a table. Which i now have!

Go go gadget internet. The ultimate tool.

I'm an opinionated person. I know this sometimes is a bad thing, but other times it can be good. I enjoy sharing my opinions and experiences with others. Most of the time i'm just trying to be helpful...in a blunt, graceless, more than you needed to know way.

I hope someone out there finds my Rants and Raves page helpful. Each of the places are hyper-linked to the post that explains more about why i chose to rant or rave.

So here are a few places that haven't made it on my list yet.

Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park:

Not only is this the workplace of wonderful friend Annie from NaNo, but it's hands down the coolest bookstore around. I never much cared for the overpriced Barnes and Nobel, or the snobbish attitude i seemed to routinely get from the Borders personnel. So i was a "leave me alone" second hand book store kind of person. But this place really rivals my favorite half price books because most likely they WILL have the book i'm looking for at super competitive prices. If i want to sit and read the first couple of chapters before buying...i can. Not once have i been interrupted to be convinced by someone who's never read the book that i should definitely buy it. The crew of Third Place really know their stuff and seem like real bookworms themselves rather than people who just needed a job.

They even have multiple kinds of food stuffs (not just a typical cafe) and occasionally a live band. This place is easily worth the drive.

(They also had Buddy Valastro from the Cake Boss there for a signing! COOL)

Another place that's worth the drive

Legend Nails in Kirkland/Juanita

I'm not big on girly things. But manicures and pedicures just feel SO good it's hard to resist sometimes. So when i go get a pedicure and pay good money, it truly and utterly pisses me off when the nail polish chips or peels after ONE DAY.

It's not like i get home and immediately wash my entire collection of dishes. But invariably, i have a tiny window of looking good.

Perhaps thats why Legend Nails is on my raves list. I don't know what they do special but I have never had a pedicure last less than THREE weeks from them. Manicures are usually good for a couple weeks at least before they start to chip.

I found it just after my sister moved because they had just opened and were having a special. Now, i'm more than willing to drive all the way over there. It's a plus cause i have someone to go with :)

Ebay Addiction

For those that have known me for a long time this might supirse you.
For those that don't: you need a little background on me.
primarily: i grew up with 15 boys (the boys in the neighborhood. I only had two brothers and one left for the military when i was 7) there were no girly dresses, makeup wearing, and frilly dolls in my growning up. I wore camoflauge, played with toy guns and the few barbies that I had (remanents of my mom trying to make me girly) wore leather and were amazons. Long about Junior High, i decided black was the only color i would wear. Not gothic, just liked black. Then came highschool, where i decided red and jeans were ok too. now out of college, i almost never wear all black, and actually have pink in my wardrob (much less i'm wearing it today).
My sister and i are complete opposites. She's neat, i'm messy, she's girly, i'm still mostly not, she's blonde, i'm brunette natrually (and currently...goodbye red for a while at least). She LOVES to shop, and up until now, i've HATED it.
Then came Ebay. Oh ebay how i love you. A simple search reveals the things you can't find at a decent price at any store, or sometimes can't find because they're always out of stock. Then they arrive usually really quickly. In the last week i have attacked my credit card with Ebay purchases of under 15$. The things i've bought include face moisturizer and oil control from Proactive (i was a total pessamist but they ROCK), mineral makeup, the final Harry Potter book (hard cover for lik 8$ with shipping :D) and two other books boy one of my favorite authors: Mercedes Lackey.
Must resist a Wii and an Ipod........don't know how long i'll last.

On a side note: i HATE having double jointed pinkies...it makes using the shift button suck. Hence why i have so many capitilization errors. I type 70wpm. slowing down to go SHIFT (hold it there because if i don't think about it, it hurts my pinkie joint that's double jointed) then the letter to be capitalized. Yeah, i'd rather spell/grammer check.