mushrooms, eggs, and baseball- equals life in Indiana

Every year that I live in Indiana I learn something new and different about the way of life for the inhabitants of this state. It never ceases to intrigue me how different the way of life is from one state to the next, in big and small ways. It's the little things that crack me up. Like the inexplicable tradition of tea. Iced. Sweetened or not. Hands down it is served at every potluck and social gathering. And is the common drink found in most people's refrigerators. I've never been a big fan of it.

I will also never understand the constant obsession with baseball. I compare the obsession to what football, hockey, and basketball combined, is to Minnesota. Yes, crazy. :)

Though my favorite odd-habitual activity is mushroom hunting. I remember the first spring we moved here and someone asked me if I had looked for any mushrooms yet. Um....I guess I didn't know I was suppose to be looking for any? They then explained to me that every spring everyone goes mushroom hunting in the woods, looking for these deliciously tasty, rare and valuable mushrooms. In my head I was thinking... "okay, this has got to be some kind of gathering where everyone goes into the woods to get high." Right? I mean come on, if you had never heard of such a thing in your life isn't that what you would think too? Well, need-less-to-say I didn't get what the big deal was. One day our next door neighbor walks over to us and gives a bread bag about 1/4 full of something that looked like dirty sponges. They were mushrooms. He figured since we'd never had them before he would share some of his findings. My in-laws were visiting at the time and I think they were even more skeptical than we were, especially when they saw how unappealing they looked. But my theory is you can't decide you don't like something until you try it- so I cooked up the mushrooms according to a friends' directions, and to my amazement they were extremely delicious. At the time I didn't know how valuable my neighbors' gift was- people hunt for the mushrooms and sell them for an unbelievable amount of money. Just for a few pounds you can make a lot of cash. So after tasting the mushrooms and realizing that hunting them could be a source of income, I now get why mushroom-hunting is so anticipated. Spring is full-on here, so the hunting has already begun-though I still have yet to venture into the woods myself and take a turn at it.

The most recent traditional discovery happened just yesterday on Easter. This new discovery I'm sure isn't as uncommon as I think, but Andy and I had never heard of it before- so it was new to us. A thing called: Egg baseball. Where you literally use a hard-boiled egg instead of a baseball. Well, let's just say it can get a little messy. Here's a little video clipping I took of Andy taking his first hit.

And this is a picture of our friend Ronal taking a taste of the end result. I might add that this is not part of the tradition, this is just disgusting.

On a side note:

I've decided that it's quite a bit different celebrating Holidays when you're no longer a kid. Or don't have kids of your own yet. Or don't live near immediate family. It's just not the same. But this year the Easter bunny visited us! Apparently we are not too old to get Easter baskets. :) On Easter morning we hop (no pun intended) in our car to go to church and are surprised to find an Easter basket in our seats! Our friends, Ronal and Braionna, snuck them into our car earlier that morning. It was a nice surprise, and Andy was as excited as a little kid. It was a very thoughtful gesture and made us feel special. :)