Autumn Moon Festival

The Autumn Moon Festival is the second largest holiday in China, after the Lunar New Year. Under the bright, round moon–a symbol of family unity–families come together for a bountiful meal followed by a trek outdoors–lanterns in hand–to gaze at the full moon and eat moon cakes: sweet, round pastries imprinted with the Chinese symbol for longevity or harmony.



The legend of the mystical lady on the moon, Chang-Er, surrounds the festival. She grew up in the luxury of the heavens, where all the gods, goddesses and fairies lived, and as a young girl, served as a lady-in-waiting at the Jade Emperor’s palace. One day she accidentally broke one of the Emperor’s precious porcelain jars: as punishment, Chang-Er was banished to the craziness of Earth, where she was sent to live with a poor farming family. There she fell in love with a handsome young archer from a neighboring village, Hou Yi.

One day, the poor villagers woke up to a dawn of ten suns, which quickly began to blaze the Earth. Hou Yi, by now a master archer, shot down nine of the ten suns, saving humanity. The Queen Mother of the West awarded him the elixir of life, a magical potion that granted immortality.

Chang-Er was too curious to resist: when Hou Yi wasn’t looking, she sneaked a sip of the potent elixir. Suddenly, she found herself floating slowly up to the moon, forced to leave behind forever her earthly life. She has remained there ever since; her only company a lone bunny rabbit.

According to folklore, moon cakes played an important role during the Yuan dynasty (A.D.1280-1368), when China was ruled by the Mongolian emperor. Unhappy with the living situation under the Mongolian colonizers, a Han Chinese rebel leader, Liu Fu Tong, decided that the time had come to execute a rebellion. He ordered the making of special cakes during the annual Autumn Moon Festival: each moon-shaped cake hid a secret message detailing a plan of attack at its center. On the night of the festival, the rebel leader and his supporters successfully attacked and overthrew the Mongolian-ruled government, ushering in the Ming dynasty.

Of course, when dealing with folklore, from another country especially, there are many different versions and translations. Just some fun info! I think I will check out the local Asian Market to see if they have any.

The First Day of School

School started on August 24.  I was sad for the day to come, but the kids are loving school and I am adjusting to the end of Summer.  It's September 14 and I'm just starting to find my ambition to get a few things done around here.  Time to get filing papers and painting walls.  If I had my choice, I would be snuggling on the sofa or sitting in the back yard "supervising" pool time, however, time to move on.  Here's to hoping that next year's end of summer I have a little one to "supervise" outdoors!

Time to change the Orange walls.

I am under the impression that it's time to change the orange walls to brown. Maybe if I completely immerse myself in a project and tear up the house, the phone will ring. I found out another friend of mine is expecting, maybe we will have babies together. (scratch head) I like brown with blue, I am keeping the blue.

The weather has been so beautiful, I feel like we are making up for summer now. Too bad the kids are in school, I have to enjoy it all by myself.

This end of summer is a great time. The tomatoes are OVER abundant, the pumkins are already ripe (and will probably be rotten by Shannon's birthday), green chili peppers-mmmmmmmm, homemade salsa, leaves are starting to fall, I turn 41 soon, and I have decided to spend some spare time couponing.

Two weeks ago I saved about 40% and last week I saved over 50%. I got good stuff, too. Mostly things I always want to buy, but don't because it's too expensive. Super Kmart has weekly free items, if you spend like $15 or $25. I got a 4 pack of die-hard AA's, 6 pack of Zest soap, paper towels, V0-5 shampoo and a few other things I forgot, all for free. Tomorrow is Sunday, I subscribed to the newspaper to help in the couponing endeavor. Also, the Suntimes has a free scratch and win thing going on, so I have the change to win up to $50K(Yeah, right).

I am blogging to the sounds of Elmo in Grouchland. Austin has his buddy Miles over and it's the night-night movie. It's just one of the best things of Austin's 7 year-old life to have a friend living next door. They don't see each other that much, only a few times a week, but they pick up where they left off each time. Usually crafting weapons out of thin air. They got to run errands all day with Dwayne today. Boy stuff. Shannon had a play date at a friends house. I was soooo close to getting the nose stud today, maybe Monday. It's a wait and see. By the way, I have a coupon for $5 off! That kind of nails it for me, no pun intended.

Alright, Elmo is over, the boys are trying to sleep in the same chair--have you seen the size of Austin and Miles lately? Have you see the size of my chair? This will be interesting. Time for lights out, or lights mostly out.

Happy September!