7 Quick Takes about Non-Conforming Eggs, Ferns that Will Absolutely Stress You Out, and Rocking Out to My Educational System

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

Happy Easter! Years ago we learned about pysanky eggs from Ukraine, and it's become an on-again, off-again Easter tradition for our family even though we have 0% Ukranian heritage.

The traditional method involves drawing geometric patterns with a wax-filled stylus and dipping the egg in successive layers of dye, but those intricate patterns are way harder to do than you might think and exceed the attention span of our kids, so we design them however we want. The result is always creative and fun, even if it's also a cultural abomination that would make a Ukranian babusia weep.

The 14-year-old made an Easter scene with the three crosses on the hill where Jesus and the two theives were crucified:

I love how the background somehow looks like papier-mâché.

The 12-year-old made a starry night sky. Not the painting The Starry Night, just a starry night:

The 9-year-old must have been hungry and decorated his with breakfast food:

Scrambled egg on a hard-boiled egg. Very meta.

And here was my egg. The wax came off in some places so the design disappeared in some areas, but we've been doing this for many years and this was probably my favorite egg I've made so far:

And someone, I'm not sure who, colored this egg like a Minion and glued a scrap of a napkin to its head for hair:

Technically, it did use wax because the drawing was in crayon. But this is pushing the boundaries of what a pysanky egg is for sure. 

—2—

Easter weekend was also general conference (click here if you don't know what that is), and the overarching message I picked up this time was: be like Jesus. Fill your heart with charitable feelings, both toward people you like and people you don't. We need it, and the world needs it.

The general conference talks covered a range of topics and this one by Emily Belle Freeman was probably my favorite:

Runners-up included:

• The story about the dog trying to chase two balls at once and getting so overwhelmed that she just gave up and laid down by Dale G. Renlund (ironically, I missed part of the story because I was in the other room frantically trying to do like three things at the same time)
• Talk by David J. Wunderli about the importance of not letting devotion to Jesus Christ slide off of our list of priorities when life gets hard and/or busy (I also liked this because his joke suggestion to his 6-year-old reminds me of something Phillip would do with our kids)

I plan to re-read and re-listen to these talks many times over the next several months, because they're really important messages for me to absorb. And sometimes, I can be a really slow learner. 

—3—

The 17-year-old was telling us that his girlfriend lost her purse, and his 14-year-old sister exclaimed "Oh, no! What was in it?"

"Everything," he answered. "Her whole inventory."

I had to stifle a laugh, because video-game speak in real life is too funny.

—4—

I saw this online:

Interesting. We all know that being in nature is calming, so this sounds like it could be true. 

But I'd like to submit this contrary evidence, some photos of the fern in our upstairs bathroom which stresses me out every time I see it:

This previously thriving fern has been on death's doorstep ever since I brought it inside for the winter, but it's almost warm enough for me to put it outside again so maybe it will pull through. Cross your fingers.

—5—

The algorithm keeps showing me a parrot named Apollo on social media, probably because it knows we also have a pet bird. 

But unlike our parakeet, who gets lost trying to fly back to her cage for a month after we rearrange the living room, Apollo seems really intelligent. He has a huge vocabulary and his owner teaches him to identify all kinds of objects, what they're made of, and what color they are. 

 

But the other day, I thought about how different kinds of animals have a different number of types of cones (photoreceptors) in their eye to detect color. Humans have three types. How many do parrots have? Can Apollo even see all the colors his owner teaches him?

Well, I looked it up and apparently birds have four cone types, so their color vision is actually better than ours. They can also see UV light. 

So basically, from Apollo's perspective, the guy is showing him stuff that looks different but saying they're the same color, so Apollo just sighs, "Fine, dummy. I'll say whatever color you think it is, I just want a pistachio."

—6—

My 14-year-old daughter made the most obscene cookies at a friend's house. 

Just look at it! It has a normal-sized cookie as a garnish, if that tells you anything.

At 6.3 ounces, it weighs the same as a McDonald's Deluxe Quarter Pounder with all the fixings and is way worse for you, considering it's topped with cream cheese frosting instead of lettuce and tomato.

—7—

I'd been using my 21-year-old's Pimsleur subscription to practice my Spanish, but her gift subscription ran out. Listening to the audio lessons has been really helpful, but Pimsleur is expensive so I don't exactly want to pay for it. So I checked my local library.

The good news is that they have it... but only on a set of CDs. I don't even think we own anything that can play a CD. Luckily, our library also has a "library of things" that includes a CD player, so I also borrowed one of those and now I'm all set. 

I'm thinking of throwing it over my shoulder and walking around town this weekend blasting my Pimsleur, like it's 1983 and I just got a brand new cassette single of "Beat It."

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