AM~Erica Celebrate the Green Wood(en)...Horned Animal

So anyway...

Today is yet another celebration!!
(And we should ALL know, by now, how much I LOVE CELEBRATIONS!)

Last year, I made some new discoveries about THIS HOLIDAY, HERE. Even though we hang on to the name of it we've known for so long, I found a new name for it & new things tied to it...

Much like this year.

We are celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year!!

Many do call it the Chinese New Year, and with many other Asian countries adopting the Chinese zodiac year, it's being focused to calling it the Lunar New Year!

Also, I discovered last year, that each year also has an element tied to it. The year 2014 was, technically, Wood Horse.

This year, I figured out there's a color tied to the element, and each color/element combo extends it's stay for 2 years in a row. So, 2014 was actually year of the Green Wood Horse! Interesting, right?

Well, the color/element combo extends into the 2015 year. But the animal changes every year. So we have a new animal, from the cycle, tied to 2015.

We will be celebrating the year of the Green Wood(en) Yang!

Look at that! Is that picture totally confusing? Yep...was for me, too!

As I was looking ahead to plan for our Lunar New Year celebration, I was seeing two different animals being listed: Year of the Goat AND Year of the Sheep...even the Ram.

Wha-WHA???

I know, it's so out there...so baffling! How could you confuse these two things as the same animal of the year?

You know I had to, of course, look into it...

I came across a great article, RIGHT HERE, that helped explain the madness!! Just by using "yang" is actually a very general term.

This is actually a bit more like it...

Even something ornamental, like this:

So there you go! Happy Lunar New Year: 2015 - the year of the Green Wood(en) Yang!

But in the meantime, we're celebrating by enjoying some Orange Chicken (my recipe HERE) with Green Tea Jasmine Rice. It's also a tradition to have an orange with it...so we did.

Of course we hand to have a fortune cookie, too.

So we are just hunkered down with the cold & a-few-flurries-turned-to-surprise-one-inch-accumulated-snow.

Now we have the Pantone Color of the Year for 2015 is Marsala, and now the Lunar New Year is the Green Wood Yang. WHEE!!

Stay tuned...

God Bless, AM~Erica

AM~Erica Wonders What the Moon is Trying to Say

So anyway...

As you know, I love celebrating stuff. Today is no different...

The thing we are celebrating today is the Chinese New Year!! OK...I'm not sure if that's so PC anymore. I say that because I've seen put out there, this year, the term Lunar New Year...

OK then...we will go with that term then. So...

HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR!!

(image found via http://www.pentadbiran.sarawak.gov.my)

I'll be honest, I don't have any Asian in me. I know...I can hear the gasps of shock right now!

This doesn't stop me from enjoying some sushi (which I know is Japanese, simmer down) & some delicious Chinese takeout (or dine in). Nom-nom-nom...

So, today I knew I would be making some Chinese for dinner. I would have used my Easy Orange Chicken (recipe HERE), but I had been excited to try a bourbon chicken, so I tried that instead.

But for lunch, and since it's Friday & hubby's & my date day, I decided we were going to get some crab rangoon! Because...ummm...crab rangoon.

There is one place we used to get amazing Chinese! Back in the day...in Grandview, MO...there was this place called Peking Express. For a short time when we lived in a Grandview apartment, we loved making the trip over to get us some Chinese! We haven't been in so many years, we don't even know if it's still there. Anyone in the KC Metro area know?

However...several years ago, we discovered some surprisingly good Chinese food! It's not a buffet...and it's not a sit-down restaurant. It's not a drive thru or a typical fast-food joint...

Our favorite place to get yummy Chinese food is from...Hy-Vee. Seriously...the grocery store!
We don't use them for our grocery shopping, but we will get Chinese from there in a heartbeat! Whether it's there or to take home...we got to the Hy-Vee!

You know one of the great things about getting Chinese from Hy-Vee? You feel like it's pretty authentic. Every Hy-Vee we've gone to for Chinese has always had an Asian cooking the food. Seriously! And it's a good price for a ton of food! I would drive an extra distance to get to Hy-Vee  before choosing Panda Express any given day! Crab rangoon is only one of those reasons (since Panda Express does cream cheese rangoon...which is NOT the same), and the general ethnicity of employees tends to make a difference. Maybe it shouldn't...but I do find it weird to get Chinese & being served by Latinos/Latinas. It's right up there with the Chinese buffet my friend, Renee, and I would go to that was run by Mexicans...and there was literally a taco bar in the back.

Anyhoo...back to Hy-Vee for a moment...

I thought it would be a great way for hubby & me to enjoy celebrating the year of the wood horse!(Apparently there's an element tied to each year, beyond just an animal...the more you know, people; knowledge is power. It's why I LOVE CELEBRATING holidays like this!) Even though the given color [palette] of the year 2014 is Radiant Orchid & I feel it should be the year of the Cheshire Cat...whatever...

Pantone's definition sure does sound like the Cheshire Cat, doesn't it?

See? I'm totally into the Year of the Cheshire Cat idea!

But I digress...

After a yummy lunch with my hubby, we had our complimentary fortune cookies! That's how it's supposed to go, right? My hubby opened his first...his was more like advice about being a friend. It wasn't anything to "ooo" & "ahh" about. So then I decided to open mine, cuz it has to be better than his. Amm-i-rite?

So I opened it up...and could not even believe what my little piece of paper told me:

wha-WHA??
Yeah..that's right. No fortune for me! RUDE! I don't think you all would have believed me if I had just printed about it...so I had to take the pic...

And it was like a Magic 8 Ball saying:

However, I kept it. I was so shocked & blind-sided by that little sliver of paper, I threw it on the tray to get rid of it. I mean, c'mon! How ridiculous! But then I decided to keep the paper. Why? Well, for proof of course, but for an interesting reminder.

If you remember, I had a Divine vision no too long ago. (reminder HERE) And I got thinking that we are shown other ways what the plan for us might be. Why do we rely on random crescent cookies to tell us where to head? There's already a plan for me...and the cookie had no idea where to lead me. My journey has already begun.

One of my new favorite movies is "The Rise of the Guardians." If you haven't seen it, do it!
My point is that the moon is the one "talking" to the guardians. Jack Frost says to each of us, "When the moon tells you something, believe it!"

(Believe it or not...we found this movie on TV after I wrote this blog. Meant to be?)

Well, on this Lunar New Year, I made the attempt to listen the crescent (see? fortune cookie is a moon reference, yo) for the sake of the holiday...
Guess what! The moon had nothing for me. My fortune is of a different sort. And I will continue on with my journey to get to the garden I was shown in that vision.

I don't need no stinkin' cookie to tell me that...

...apparently...

But, to help celebrate the wood horse lunar new year, I give you a panda on a wooden rocking horse:

(found on Yahoo! Shine via whitelightwarrior.tumblr.com)

You're welcome. Now go find your own fortune.

Stay tuned...

God Bless, AM~Erica

*****
On another note:
My daughter was administering some of those buzzy quizzes, and she decided to ask me questions to see which Toy Story character I am. One of the questions had to do with fortune cookies...and one of the possible answers was, "Your fortune is in another cookie."

UGH!!!

Teen Girl thought it was hilarious. Figures.

*****

And on another note (I know, I know..."how many of these notes will there be?"):
Just found out that Radiant Orchid is a perfect color since 2014 (added up) equals 7. The color purple is magical (duh!) & the number 7 is karmic. Whoa...deep! Thanks for that info, Ang!