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Sunday Gratitude – 18.X.2026

Hi everyone! Glad to be back here. I’m still struggling with a lot, and there’s a lot that’s really overwhelming. However, I’m going to give it a shot as far as gratitude here.
Most importantly, probably, is that my son had a surgery on his ear a couple of weeks back, and everything went really, really well. Yes, he had the same surgery back in February on the other ear, and it went really well, but there’s still a good bit of nervousness attached to all these things.

Secondly, I recently took part in the Serbian Orthodox Choral Association’s annual choir festival. Because it was only a week after the surgery, I wasn’t going to go, but then there were people who had signed up who either couldn’t go or couldn’t sing, and I was asked if there might be some way that I could go. I managed to get things arranged, and I went. It was an amazing trip, and I hope to write about it separately. Most of us who went ended up driving, including the people I rode with, but everything went off without a hitch, there were no accidents or incidents with the driving, and the event was a lot of fun. I am very grateful for that, and for getting to see the city and experience the city a little.
If any of you are interested, our choir’s performance can be found here (our group starts at 45:15):
The weather has gotten cooler, and I’m grateful for that (St. Louis at over 90F was quite a shock to the system). This just seems to be one of those patches that is especially rough, so I’d appreciate your prayers for me and my kids.

Thank you ever so much for following; you are amazing!

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Songs of the Season 2025 – “Karácsonyi bölcsődal – Christmas Lullaby” – Katica Illényi

This is a Hungarian Christmas song – for a more traditional setting, there’s this:

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Songs of the Season 2025 – “In the Bleak Midwinter” – Zeke’s Oboe


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Songs of the Season 2025 – “I Saw Three Ships” – Lindsey Stirling

Even when she’s not dancing, I love Lindsey Stirling’s energy!

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Songs of the Season 2025 – “Holy, Holy, Holy” – Lily and Madeleine

This is Sufjan Stevens’ arrangement, so in many ways, it does sound similar to his version, but at the same time, as it’s a duet here sung by two women, it’s also quite a bit different.

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Songs of the Season 2025 – “Carol of the Bells” – John Tesh

I heard this on the radio this morning and never imagined that John Tesh has at least three different versions of “Carol of the Bells” out there. Enjoy!
(Totally unrelated, but I came across this a couple of days ago and the version of “Carol of the Bells” here reminded me of it!)

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Songs of the Season 2025 – “Last Christmas” (German Version) – Sean Riewesell

So, “Last Christmas” is certainly on the shortlist of Christmas songs I despise the most. However, turn it into a 1920’s German style number and it’s kind of tolerable.
Oh, and I do love that piece of furniture in the back there!

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Songs of the Season 2025 – “Hello Christmas” – Isabelle Fries

I just happened to hear this in a store today. 🙂

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Songs of the Season 2025 – “Where is the Comma in ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ Supposed to Go?” – RamsesThePigeon

It’s early in the season yet, so I do tend to get silly. Please enjoy! 🙂

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Sunday Gratitude – 30.XI.2025

It’s crazy how incredibly fast a week can pass, how incredibly full it can be, and how much it seems to be difficult to remember much of what happened.
I missed church today. It snowed for close to 24 hours here, and by the time it was all over, there was about six inches of the white stuff in my driveway. About 2/3 through shovelling the stuff to the side, I broke the handle to the shovel. I did something somewhat stupid, and I tried to see if I could simply drive through the rest of it, and while it probably would have been fine if the driveway was flat, there’s a little bit of a dip where the driveway connects to the road, and I managed to get the car completely stuck there. Thankfully, there was another snow shovel in the garage, one that is probably at least sixty years old, solid wood and steel and almost completely indestructible – but ridiculously heavy, unwieldy, and un-ergonomic. It got the job done, though, and managed to free the car. I’m understanding that there are certain items where if they break, a person is kind of up a creek, so I suppose this far north, if a person doesn’t have two of them on hand, it’s kind of tempting fate. But because I got the car out, I was able to go to Meijer and get a new snow shovel.
Most of my weekend plans went down the tubes with the snowstorm. However, I’m thankful to be able to have a warm and dry and safe place. The power was out last night for 3-4 hours, and not only did I not freeze to death, our local power company had people working in the middle of the night to get the power back on as quickly as possible. Also, I was feeling decently sick on Friday morning; I’m glad to be over that, but the weather was a moment just to stay put and relax a bit, and as much as I wanted to do the things I wanted to do, I’m also grateful that I could relax a bit.

I was crazy enough to go out on the bike on Friday afternoon. I needed the break (and the exercise). I don’t know; even after being in the area for a decade, I love the beauty of the place, and I’m grateful to get to experience it. (Oh, boy, was I cold by the end of it though! 15 miles, just for fun, starting temperature about 30F and it just got colder from there.)
The kids were with me for Thanksgiving, and I managed to put together a decent spread. I’m not sure I did a *great* job with the turkey, but it wasn’t too bad. I’m just grateful that as much as it was far from perfect, it’s not like we did *nothing*. I’m also grateful for the opportunity to catch up with close friends after not having seen them for a good long while.

Cornbread with cranberries I’m grateful that the doctor’s appointment on Wednesday took place without any crazy stuff. Hopefully, too, we’re nearing the end of this “saga”.
Oh, boy, it isn’t even 11, and I’m starting to nod off sitting in the armchair. .Please know, too, that I am grateful for you as well and in particular, your prayers.

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Songs of the Season 2025 – “Christmas Alphabet Medley” (Christmas Alphabet/Merry Christmas Polka/Christmas in America) – Spike Jones and His City Slickers

Because. Spike Jones. Funny how the really good comedic musicians are truly amazing in their musicianship, but that part kind of gets overlooked by all the silliness.

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