As I have already mentioned in a previous post, I suffer from depression. In the past couple of years I have been working on overcoming this. Per Rebbe Nachman's prescription, I look for silly and funny things to improve my moods.
The rabbis teach us that the continuous obligation of Noahides is yishuv olom/improving the condition of the world. I know that I cannot accomplish this mitzvah if I am depressed.
A few years ago I saw a coffee mug in a little gift shop. I loved what it had to say, so needless to say, I bought it. I have taken the words of wisdom from that mug and put it into action.
The words on the mug are: Go Forth Into the Day and Make It GOOD! That is now my personal motto. I think Rebbe Nachman would like that. I wonder if he drank coffee? If so, I think he would have enjoyed having a mug like it too.
In working towards making every day good I find something to celebrate every day. Sometimes I celebrate alone, sometimes with my grandchildren, and sometimes with others.
Yesterday was Umbrella Day. I celebrated by myself, here at home. It was lots of fun. All my children and grandchildren were out of town, and my husband was at work. So, I just had fun in a simple way.
I worked on putting my celebration photos on a blog, then forgot to hit save, so it just disappeared. It was too late and near bedtime to redo it, so I will post yesterday's celebration blog today. So, here goes. I hope you enjoy my blog about Umbrella Day.
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When : Always February 10th
Umbrella Day is in honor of one of the world's most invaluable inventions. On a rainy, day, we are sure glad that someone was smart enough to invent it. It's also increasingly popular to use umbrellas to shade ourselves from harmful UV radiation, and the heat of the sun.
Umbrellas come in all sorts of sizes, colors, shapes, and, designs. Businesses and organizations use them for advertising. The smallest umbrellas fit inside a purse or glove compartment. Golf umbrellas are popular sizes. Then, there are lawn and beach umbrellas. [from some random website]
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The weather here was not rainy. In fact it was so windy that an umbrella would have blown away to the heavens had I tried to put one up outside. I have a servicable black umbrella, but decided I wanted a new one. A pretty one. So I went to the dollar store and bought a pretty teal colored one. It folds up so small I can put it in my computer bag or book bag to carry it with me.
I then came home to bake some cupcakes. I hardly ever bake anything since we can get kosher desserts and baked goods pretty easily. I gathered everything on the counter and started my celebration.
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Here are all the ingredients I used. I felt like I was setting up for a cooking show. You will notice in the photo that I had sat out some colored sugar sprinkles. I decided not to use them since the kids would not be here to eat the cupcakes, so they are not on the finished product as you will later see.
It is very irritating to me when I try to eat a cupcake and it sticks to the little paper liner. So when I bake cupcakes I lightly spray the inside of each paper liner. It also irritates me when the baking pan stays sticky after using the spray directly on it. So, I place each paper liner on a spread out newspaper page to spray it, then put the liners in the baking pan. It works great! The cupcakes don't stick, and I don't have a messy, sticky pan to clean up later.
Because I keep a traditional kosher kitchen I check each egg for blood spots before using it. This is a photo of me holding the egg in a glass bowl up to the light to check it.
I use mostly organic foods and really think the brown eggs are pretty as well as having a very rich dark yoke.
I filled each cupcake liner with one fourth of a cup of the batter. This makes the cupcakes rise just to the top of the liner. I like the uniform size that this amount of batter makes.
I baked the cupcakes for 20 minutes. Since everyone's oven is not exactly the same, you would choose the time that works best for your own baking project.
I let the cupcakes completely cool on wire racks before frosting them.
I set up umbrellas around the table, put on a pretty white cotton table cloth, sprinkled a few brightly colored jelly beans around, added some pretty ribbons, put the cupcakes on some of my colored glass dishes, and suddenly it was a party! I made myself a cup of coffee, sat under the umbrella, did a little Torah studying, and celebrated Umbrella day. Later when Lance came home he loved having freshly baked cupcakes. It was a fun day for me.
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Go to the following link to watch a happy Umbrella Day video:
http://www.jumpcut.com/view?id=A717B9B6785611DD845E000423CEF5F6
