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Sunday Gratitude – 19.V.2024
Forgive me for procrastinating – it seems like it’s something I can’t get away from. I’ve accomplished a lot in the last week – and even this weekend, and I’m thankful for that – but I feel kind of like there’s a heavy weight still hanging over me and that no matter how much I do, I’m still playing whack-a-mole with all that needs to get done.
I’m incredibly frustrated with Substack, which hasn’t corrected the issue that is making it impossible for me to write posts over there. On the other hand, although I mirror a lot of what I write over there over here, the Saturday posts actually do take a considerable amount of time, and as frustrating as it is not to be able to post over there, I’m grateful that it’s lifted a good deal of the pressure to write those posts off my shoulders for the time being so that I can concentrate on the house.
We had more hail this week, and I’m grateful that it doesn’t seem to have damaged anything. Yesterday was truly a gorgeous Wisconsin summer day, sunny, with a high of about 81F. Despite the sunburn, I’m grateful for days like that (though it makes me wonder how I thought, as a kid, that pretty much any temperature under 90F was tolerable.)
I’m thankful that I have a lovely neighbor who has been calling to get together on a fairly regular basis. I’m thankful for a place to live and not being in want for food or what have you. I’m thankful to be able to contribute something at church, and grateful that there’s a priest who is willing to hear my confession, even if it’s not the church I regularly attend.
I’m grateful to have a little bit of time to try to get things accomplished, even if I do procrastinate. I’m thankful that there are people who can use things that I no longer have use for, and that it makes them happy.
I’m grateful to still see wonder in the world, and I’m grateful for your attention and patience.
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Little Miracles
Ten years ago, my mom was helping clean out my grandmother’s house. Since we had recently moved to a house of our own, my mom and my sister dug up 25 varieties of my grandma’s hostas (she had over 90) and brought them here to be planted. Wouldn’t you know, every single one “took”, and at least for a couple of years, we had all of them.
One section of hostas in 2020 Unfortunately, I found out that if I don’t keep the arbor vitae in check, the hostas suffer. And so I lost a couple of hostas that way. A couple didn’t come back, and one was struggling and accidentally got run over by the neighbor with a lawn mower. Most of them were still there, though.
Last year, I was so overwhelmed with everything that I barely even looked at the yard. I mowed the lawn, I kept the thistles from going completely out of control, but I had no time or energy for any of the flowers or anything we usually would have. Sometime in late summer, I glanced up at where there had been a whole row of hostas, and while a couple were there, it looked like the whole section was mostly weeds. It’s not that I didn’t care, but I just didn’t have the energy to deal with it.
In any case, one of the reasons I trimmed back the arbor vitae a few weeks ago was because I knew that if there was any hope of salvaging any of the hostas, they’d have to get enough light to grow. I spent a couple of hours cutting things back, listening to Jonathan Pageau on my headphones whilst doing it.
Well, it seems like most of those in the above picture are still there. A couple look more or less normal:
And as I started searching around, I discovered that many of the others are at least trying to come up this year. I may have lost one completely, but it looks like there’s hope for some of the others.
This is one of the huge ones – this single stalk was about a foot tall. 
I hope some sunshine and continued weeding will help these this year. And this weekend? Well, there are more hostas to rescue from the weeds on the other side of the arbor vitae! *L*
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Sunday Gratitude – 12 May 2024
Happy Mother’s Day!
Oh, it’s been a week again! And, once again, I’m having weekend issues with Substack. There has been so much to do, and with the kids finishing up the school year shortly, there’s certainly the feel of a mad rush to get everything done.
It’s been kind of a blue week, with some big stresses, but there is a sense of the joy of Pascha, which I’m grateful for. I’m grateful for so many of the people around me.
I’m grateful for the spring weather, and for the beautiful trees all around. In other years, I’ve noticed trees, but this year they just seem perfect. I’m also grateful that the hail didn’t do damage to the house (as far as I know) and even the trees and flowers seem to have come through fairly unscathed. I got caught in some of the hail whilst driving; I’m grateful that we all made it through safely and the car didn’t even get dented – and some of it was getting close to pea-sized.
I am grateful that it seems like a little progress is being made with getting the house more orderly. It’s one of the reasons I haven’t been as active writing – if I spend an “extra” hour folding clothes, well, it cuts into reading and writing. Add to it the end of year stuff, and… it’s a lot.
Thank you all very much for your patience with me!
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Sunday Gratitude – 5.V.2024 – Paschal Edition
Christ is Risen!
First and foremost, I’m grateful for God’s love, in the many “everyday” ways, but of course, because of the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross. It’s a tough thing to wrap one’s mind around, even knowing the story from the time I was very small. One can understand a story as a child, but it takes getting older to peel back the implications of a lot of things. With this, a lifetime is still not long enough. I am grateful for the easy access to hearing people who do think about these things – sure, one has to be careful not to get carried away on weird teachings, and there’s no lack of those online, but it amazes me that I can click over to Youtube and listen to some very high-quality talks for free. One that a friend sent me that I enjoyed a lot is this:
I am grateful that it ended up being a good weekend, even without the kids. I managed to make it to two services on Friday, an hour of reading from the Psalter on Saturday, Paschal services over Saturday night/early Sunday morning, and then Agape Vespers today. After Agape Vespers, there was a picnic, and the weather was perfect and it was a lot of fun to sit and chat.
i am thankful that despite my issues with oversleeping and getting things done on time as of late, it seems that there haven’t been too many repercussions. I’m thankful that even though I got caught in a brief storm yesterday, I had places to pull off until things had lightened up enough that I could see.
I’m grateful that I got a lot of stuff accomplished this past week. I suppose I should be grateful for the zombie dandelions that keep me from admiring my work on the lawn too much, but I’m still working on that. I am thankful, though, for the many beautiful tulips that have been blooming this year – it’s been a long time since they have been anywhere near this good.
I am thankful that I got to go to an event this weekend, and that I got to do a little bit of a side quest on the way to the event. I hope that the effort might bear some good fruit in the future.
I’m even a little grateful that Substack seems to be having some of its weekend issues – right now I can’t use most buttons, including those needed for posting – and so I have a bit of breathing room before feeling obligated to “catch up” with my normal Saturday posts.
I am grateful to still be standing, even in the midst of a lot of storms and uncertainty. I’m grateful that by sending a number of friends messages for Pascha, I ended up “chatting” via text with two people I haven’t talked to in years. I am so very thankful for all of you as well, for your attention and comments, prayers, and all those things.
Christ is Risen!
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Music Memory – “Reflections of my Life”
Believe it or not, but once upon a time, particularly when I was in high school, I was a Beatles fanatic. Music was my refuge, and the Beatles spoke to my heart. However, I didn’t stick merely to the Beatles in my music choices, but expanded to a lot of British Invasion music, as well as the music of the “rock’n’roll” era in general.
Back then, if I was on the prowl for new music, one of the things I’d do was that I’d go to Best Buy to see what they had. Mind you, this was in the day when Best Buy not only sold music, but many had a pretty decent selection as well. The one that I’d go to – which was a nice, two-mile trek if I had the time to walk – ended up being the top store for music sales in the entire chain for 1995. One of the things I got was a boxed set of the first four CDs in the Rhino Records “British Invasion: History of British Rock” series. It’s probably the most in-depth British Invasion collection made, and it made me much more familiar, thanks to liner notes, with bands that I’d heard of, but it also caused me to fall in love with artists like Donovan and The Seekers.
Mind you, it probably took me a year to finish off the set, between having money available (and not something else I wanted more) and the CDs I was missing actually being available. In any case, I got the ninth volume fairly early on, and one song that hit me hard was Marmalade’s “Reflections of My Life”.
Now, I don’t know if I got the CD before or after my 16th birthday, but even then, it seemed to speak to the chaos of the world and trying to make one’s way amidst that. In many of the Beatles’ later songs, there’s this idea of trying to go back home but not being able to (Cry Baby Cry, Golden Slumbers, Get Back, for starters) and this song hits that same place. It’s funny that in some sense, it’s so nostalgic, but on the other, they were very young singing this, and I carried that as well, even being younger still.
I remember I had a journal for one of my classes my senior year of high school, and I started picking songs of the day for the entries. This was the song for November 4, 1995 because it was the day that Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. I don’t know; at the time it just seemed like there was progress for humankind – after all, it had only been a couple of years prior that the unthinkable had happened, and Germany had reunified and the Soviet Union had fallen apart. Yes, I was an international relations geek even then, even if I hadn’t even heard the term “international relations”. Back then, I believed a lot of what the news was feeding me as far as framing of issues and such, and… it would be Joseph Cardinal Bernardin’s death a year later which would eventually end up causing me to lose a lot of trust in the media.
In any case, in those days before Amazon, I ended up searching for a CD of Marmalade for a long time, and I never was able to find one. Even when I went to Germany for the first time in 1996, I searched for their music there as well, knowing that they had been bigger in Europe than in the US. No luck.
“Reflections of my Life” only made it to #10 on the US charts in 1970, but it’s interesting because every once in awhile, I’ll hear it randomly, like in a store or something. Most recently, I’ve heard it in rotation for Mark Belling’s bumper music for his radio program. I always think I’m “in the know” for recognizing it. More than that, though, it always takes me back to my senior year of high school and the tumult that was going on in my own life and in the larger world.
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Wordless Wednesday #63 – The Chapel at Dachau
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Lilla Rose May 2024 Update
For the latest Lilla Rose posts, please check out the following:
The author of this blog is a “Flexi Rep/Affiliate” with Lilla Rose, and is not employed by Lilla Rose. Purchases made through this link <https://www.lillarose.com/katja> will earn the author a commission.
May flowers! I’m happy it’s really and truly spring – finally! And with the new month, Lilla Rose has some new stuff!
(Yes, the “E-clip” from last month was an April Fool’s joke!)
This month has a new “mane event” special, in time for Flag Day and the 4th of July –
New Releases:
There’s also a number of things that were discontinued which are back at least for a little bit:
Also, ideas for Mother’s Day…
I’ve noticed that Lilla Rose has introduced a small number of necklaces – one of them is called Posie and the link is here: Posie Necklace.
For quarter two, the new promotion is a set of jersey-knit headbands with orders of $80 or more:
I don’t know; I haven’t been doing very much with my hair as of late… Just feeling a little blue and uninspired. This too shall pass.
To order, make sure to click through with my link; every little bit helps.
https://www.lillarose.com/katja
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Sunday Gratitude – 28.IV.2024
I’m grateful we made it to church & that there wasn’t any unpleasantness, even with kids. It’s been a long time since anyone has made a fuss, but it still puts me on edge.
I’m grateful to be feeling pretty much better from being sick. It came on so bizarrely, I still can’t say exactly what it was, but I’m thankful that I could just be at home and try to feel better (for the most part). And for the rest of it, well, it is what it is.
I’m grateful for the weather really starting to get into spring, even with the crazy temperature fluctuations. I’m grateful that there are actually tulips outside – the last couple of years, they’ve absolutely been decimated by critters, to the point where last year, only a single tulip bloomed, despite there probably being something like thirty that came up. We used to do pictures of the kids in their Pascha outfits with the blooming tulips every year. Thinking about it makes me incredibly sad, however, maybe I’ll be able to at least get pictures with the little kids, at least.
I’m thankful that the old pickup is finally out of my driveway. Now for the trailer!
I’m grateful still to be here to fight another day!
As always, I’m always grateful for you and the time you give in reading!
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(Yes, it’s very late) Saturday on Substack 27.IV.2024
Forgive me for the blog silence – I was very sick last week, and though I’m pretty much over whatever it was, I’m still playing “catch-up” with everything I’m needing to do. Maybe it’s just me, but it’s not a nice feeling at all.
In any case, here’s the link, & I’d love to hear from you: https://open.substack.com/pub/breathofhallelujah/p/saturday-on-substack-27iv2024
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Something for a Laugh
The Babylon Bee strikes again! *L*
Let’s endeavor never to lose the ability to laugh!
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Breath of Hallelujah 