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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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Wordle #549
Never played Wordle? Check out my Wordle strategy page!
Wordle explanations are posted a day late to ensure that no one accidentally sees the solution before playing.
Line 1: One misplaced “T”. Better than nothing.
Line 2: I decided to move the “T” to the beginning, put an “H” after it, and use a vowel that I hadn’t used before. “THI” is correct – not bad.
Line 3: “Third” – my next guess of a word starting with “THI”. This went surprisingly quickly!
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Wordless Wednesday #12 – The Bears’ Christmas
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Wordle #548
Never played Wordle? Check out my Wordle strategy page!
Wordle explanations are posted a day late to ensure that no one accidentally sees the solution before playing.
Line 1: The “problem children” (“E” and “A”) are back, and they brought a friend! How sweet!
Line 2: Shall we put them all together to spend some time together? Not a bad choice at all!
Line 3: With moving the “E” over to the end, I pick a blend to put at the beginning and absolutely shock myself to guess the word of the day so quickly!
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Songs of the Season – The Royal Guardsmen – Snoopy’s Christmas
This is a fun little song by the Royal Guardsmen, who got to be known as the “Snoopy band” for their hits – two gold records – about Snoopy. It wasn’t necessarily their choice, but they had a surprise smash hit with “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron” in 1966 (hitting #2 on the chart) and their manager was keen to keep trying to do the same thing. Now, “Snoopy’s Christmas” may be the more famous of the two of their “gold” singles with it’s story reminiscent of the 1914 WWI Christmas truce.
I’d seen the animated video to go with this song, but this live version is awesome as well. I mean, how often do you see a marching glockenspiel in a pop band? The 60s era “high tech” graphics are a hoot as well, and if you think the young men look impossibly young… Well, when “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron” came out in 1966, four of the members of the band were still in high school, and touring had to wait for Christmas break and once they graduated in 1967. While this song was recorded in 1967, the four were no longer in high school, but still in their teens.
Another little bit of trivia here – According to the band, they were the first band from Florida to have a record to sell a million copies.
In addition to the “Carol of the Bells” playlist, I’ve started a general playlist of Christmas songs that will include pieces mentioned here, for anyone interested.
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December Melancholy
There are a lot of reasons for joy in December. We commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ, who was sent for our redemption. This church holy day has kind of taken on a life of its own, and I see comments all the time about it often hardly seems like that holy day has any meaning in the midst of it.
The “image” of what Christmas “should be”, of presents and laughter, family and good food, is not necessarily a bad thing either, but for a lot of people, it can be jarring, especially if one gets to feeling lost or left behind in all of it.
Also for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, December is the month of the shortest days of the year, of cold, of darkness, and of death. Many times, there is a distinct feeling of loneliness, often exacerbated by the hustle and bustle of others.
There are some scientific reasons for this, Seasonal Affective Disorder being one of them. Many times, it’s more difficult to pin down. I know I dislike being fed the idea that December is a time when I *should* be happy or excited or what have you.
I also think it’s interesting that even with the number of “happy” Christmas songs and carols, there are a lot which are much more melancholy, and I have kind of been drawn toward those even as a kid. Give me “Christmas Dinner” by Peter, Paul, and Mary any day over Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime“, which makes me want to shoot the radio every time I hear it (and which, thankfully, has not been in heavy rotation on my local “Christmas station” this year).
I guess when it comes to December melancholy, I try to ride the line between feeling it but not falling into despair, to not try to ignore Christmas, but let it bring its true joy come forth from within, rather than the forced “happy, happy, happy” that would be sold a person. I believe that this is a reasonable place to be, especially during difficult or transitional times, but sometimes “just because”.
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Wordle #547
Never played Wordle? Check out my Wordle strategy page!
Wordle explanations are posted a day late to ensure that no one accidentally sees the solution before playing.
Line 1: An “R” in the wrong place isn’t much, but at least it’s something!
Line 2: Oooh. Now *3* letters all in the wrong places! Progress! 🙂
Line 3: With an “E” and and “R”, the word wouldn’t happen to end in “ER” now would it? If it does, let’s make it something-“A”-consonant-“ER”. Unfortunately, it’s not “later”. We also can see where the “T” belongs.
Line 4: Yes, “T” in the right place, but it wasn’t “tamer”
Line 5: “Taper”? Yes! I’m guessing in the sense of to “taper off” or as in a candle rather than somebody who tapes something 😉
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Songs of the Season – Mariah Carey – Joy to the World
Yes, I make jokes about Mariah Carey at Christmas, especially after she tried to trademark “Queen of Christmas”. I don’t like the style of a lot of her music, especially the “warbling” at the high notes. Also, her music was incredibly overplayed in the 1990s.
That being said, the woman has an incredible voice, and an almost unbelievable range. While she is known for being able to sing very, very high, she considers herself an alto, and when she actually sings in that range, all of a sudden I find her much more tolerable to listen to.
I like this arrangement of “Joy to the World”. It’s definitely more “gospel” than a lot of what Mariah Carey sings, which reminds me of big, inner-city churches of my childhood, and I find it amusing that the arrangement pulls in a bit of Three Dog Night’s “Joy to the World”, which really has nothing to do with Christmas (and from what I understand was nonsense on purpose).
In addition to the “Carol of the Bells” playlist, I’ve started a general playlist of Christmas songs that will include pieces mentioned here, for anyone interested.
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Sunday Gratitude – #12 (Monday Edition)
This week, I ended up contacting Teledoc because Oldest Daughter was sick to the point of probably needing prescription medicine, but scheduling with her pediatrician is not always easy and doing that or going to urgent care gets expensive. There’s a lot that Teledoc is not designed for, but it certainly is useful for “simple” things like the occasional sinus infection or what-have-you.
However, Oldest Daughter had never used this again, which meant that she needed to be registered and she’s a minor, so it had to be done under a guardian account, and while I used Teledoc before, the last time was when I was really feeling terrible, and I didn’t remember anything about my login or password. For this reason, I ended up calling.
I ended up on the line with a woman named Jessica from Louisiana. Not only did she need a lot of information, but their system was being slow and not working properly, but she was friendly and patient and extraordinarily helpful all the way through. We started chatting during the pauses, and by the time everything was done – probably close to an hour later – it was like talking to an old friend, and I was sad to have to hang up. I am grateful to be reminded that there are really wonderful people out there even in the most “mundane” of places. (And here, I shouldn’t forget a woman named Kimberly from T-Mobile a few weeks ago either!)
I’m grateful to my attorney, and to the “random strangers” who helped me find her.
I am grateful to have had some time alone this weekend, to do “nothing” and get some things done.
Writing about the carol yesterday, it certainly reminded me how I am grateful to have known John Sutko.
And I am certainly always grateful to God, who loves us and doesn’t abandon us.
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Wordle #546
Never played Wordle? Check out my Wordle strategy page!
Wordle explanations are posted a day late to ensure that no one accidentally sees the solution before playing.
Line 1: The “O” in the middle is nice – not something I would have expected, and the “R” is the cherry on top.
Line 2: So, there is only one “O” here, and the “R” isn’t at the end.
Line 3: An “OR” word? Yes, yes, indeed. Some other letters would be helpful, though.
Line 4: Finally! This is kind of tough. I suspect that the “C” does not end the word, so it probably begins it. “H” is still out there, so is there anything that starts “CHOR”? Yes, yes there is!
Line 5: “Chord”!
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Songs of the Season – Radost’ Sja Nam/ Joy to Us Has Been Revealed
This is another in the series of “kolady”, though it’s a recording that’s a little bit closer to home, as this is a choir that I have sung in, and the director here – John Sutko – besides being an incredibly talented choral director with the patience of Job, was an amazing singer, hitting those basso profundo notes like very few can, but more than that, he was an amazing person full of warmth and love for everyone he met. Whenever he’d see me, his face would light up and he’d exclaim “Krasivaya [beautful] Katerina!” like it just made his day that I was around.
John died in 2020, and truly one of the cruelest parts of the whole Covid saga is that the old and the sick and the dying were forcibly separated from those who loved them. John’s funeral should have had a thousand people at it – he was choir director at his church (St. Peter & St. Paul Orthodox Church, now in Burr Ridge, Illinois) for 65 years, and a teacher for his entire career, and he had a knack of making everyone feel special – but I don’t think even his entire family was allowed to go.
John was born here in the US, but he was proud of his Carpatho-Rusyn heritage; he loved their music. In the 1970s, he spent nearly a decade working on making good translations and musical settings for the Orthodox Church in America – I have no doubt that many of the “kolady” were also translated and set by him.
The songs didn’t change much from year to year, but I sure had a lot of fun singing them in John Sutko’s choir. He’d usually do at least one concert a year, generally a Christmas or Pascha (Easter) themed. He was very good about getting these recorded, and he’d make copies of the recordings to send to friends and parishioners who were too ill or frail to have been to church recently. His grandson, Fr. Alexander Koranda, has posted a few recordings up on Youtube, but I do hope that more show up.
In addition to the “Carol of the Bells” playlist, I’ve started a general playlist of Christmas songs that will include pieces mentioned here, for anyone interested.
If you enjoy my posts, please consider:
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Thank you very much!
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