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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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Help for a Church Building Project — Orthodox Help

St. Herman of Alaska Church is located in Langley, British Columbia, Canada. Fr. Lawrence Farley, author of the No Other Foundation blog at Ancient Faith Ministries, is currently the priest there. They are in the midst of a large building project that was already greatly interrupted by Covid-19. In any case, there has been a […]
Help for a Church Building Project — Orthodox Help -
Wordle #517


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: This is something different – a single “H” in the wrong place.
Line 2: I found where the “H” goes, at least!
Line 3: With no “T” and no “W” or “C”, there are only a couple more letters to pair with the “H”… and the “G” isn’t the one that it is.
Line 4: So.. there is no “E” ” or “I” or “O” or “U”. I could either play a word here with “A” – though “graph” wouldn’t work because the “R” isn’t in the puzzle… And then I thought of an alternate with a “Y” as a vowel… “Glyph” – and it worked! This was a lot of fun! 🙂
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!

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Wordle #516


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: “E” and “R”… Good to have something, but they are two very common letters, this doesn’t tell me a lot.
Line 2: I made “ER” “RE”, but didn’t have any better luck.
Line 3: So… I had originally thought of playing “where” but wanted something that didn’t have the two “E”s. It’s obvious I was tired, because I changed the word to “whelp” and didn’t realize that I had dropped the “R”. I was just happy I had two letters correct and in correct positions.
Line 4: Since the first letter wasn’t “W”, I figured it was very likely to be “T”. I did well on that, and got back to words with two “E”s. I did well with that as well. But I wonder what that missing letter between the “E”s could be…
Line 5: I still didn’t catch the missing “R” here.
Line 6: It was at this point that I realized that I had dropped the “R” after line 2, and that I’d need it to solve the puzzle. It was a horrible, sloppy win, but it was a win nonetheless. Sometimes it happens that way, and sometimes there are ones that are played well that are lost.
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!

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Wordle #515


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: Hmm.. “A” and “R”. At least not “A” and “E”, right? (Of course, I didn’t play “E” here.
Line 2: Let’s move the “R” to the front – still not right. However, the “A” is now correct, and I got the “E” in the correct spot right off – woot!
Line 3: I *think* “gamer” was the answer to a Wordle way back when (apparently it was) but I played it anyway, and I’ve got the correct spot for the “R”.
Line 4: I was really, really torn here about whether to keep playing “expert mode”, so to speak, and just try to figure out what the two missing letters were in those two slots, or find words that used a lot of the letters left to eliminate letters more quickly. I couldn’t think of any good words that would help me significantly more than just choosing letters to go in those two slots, but the decision made me really nervous that I wasn’t going to get this puzzle.
Line 5: There actually weren’t as many combinations out there as I had imagined, but I was still very pleasantly surprised to get this one. “Baker”!
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!

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A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong – ‘Tis the Season Cinema

I am tagging a long a bit with Lisa at Boondock Ramblings and Erin at Cracker Crumb Life with their Christmas movie watching (‘Tis the Season Cinema). I haven’t really watched much for movies in ages, some of it comes down to time, and some of it comes down to not knowing what’s worth watching. For those reasons, it seemed like joining might be a good way to change things up a little bit.

A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong Promo Shot – (not my work) Oh, boy, was this something else. From what I see, the cast did a special called “Peter Pan Goes Wrong” and people who had seen that may have known a little bit better what to expect. Having never heard of this before, I had no idea what was coming.
First of all, the total run time in 51 minutes, since it was a BBC special. Secondly, the premise of this is that it was a BBC special but because of “circumstances” the BBC actors have been replaced at the last moment by members of the theater troupe of a local polytechnic college.
I must admit, even with the short length, I didn’t watch this all in one go, but actually in three chunks. Oddly enough, I think this kind of helped, because I was very confused by the beginning, and by stopping and thinking about what happened, it made figuring this out a little easier – I think. I think, now that I know what is going on a bit better, watching the whole thing might be a lot of fun.
“A Christmas Carol” is one of the most well-known and most-filmed books in the Western canon, and putting a new “spin” on it is difficult. What took me a while to grasp here is that this isn’t actually about “A Christmas Carol” but that the story is a backdrop to another story going on, one in which just about anything that can go wrong does go wrong, there’s a huge clash of personalities, and somehow it works to the end.
I’m still not 100% sure how I feel about this, but on the other hand, there were places where I was laughing out loud at the humor and absurdity of it all – and these days, it seems like humor takes more and more courage to do. In some ways, it might be easier creating humor with a piece that is well over 100 years old, but none of the humor was inappropriate for younger audiences. This seems to be rare, too. Did all of the jokes and pranks work? Probably not, but I do feel that I want to see it again and that it might work its way into “things to watch just to laugh” list.
I haven’t read the other reviews, but if you’re interested, Lisa’s review is here: https://lisahoweler.com/2022/11/17/tis-the-season-cinema-a-christmas-carol-goes-wrong/ and Erin’s is here: https://crackercrumblife.com/2022/11/17/tis-the-season-cinema-a-christmas-carol-goes-wrong/
P.S. If you would like to watch this, it’s available on YouTube for free (with ads) and can be found here:

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Wordle #514


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: Maple didn’t start out too badly – misplaced “A” and “L”
Line 2: And… second verse, same as the first.
Line 3: Yay! I got the “A” in the right place. But I forgot to use the “L”. At least I got an “N” as a replacement, I guess.
Line 4: I hadn’t played “U” yet, but since I played “E”, “I”, and “O” and none of them appear in the word, I got to thinking there was a good chance that “A” was the only vowel. Then I started thinking about how the “L” and the “N” could be placed in that circumstance. “S” still hadn’t been played, and could be combined to make “SL” or “SN” words. Even though “N” could be combined with a couple of other consonants, things like “slank” aren’t words. Switching to “SN”, as soon as I saw “SNA” and the “L” in spot 5, “snarl” came to mind quickly.
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!

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Wordless Wednesday #7 – Close to Home



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Wordle #513


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: My two problem children appear again, but at least “E” is in the correct place.
Line 2: “Amble” did really well here… What would happen if I reversed the “A” and the “M”?
Line 3: Sweet! 🙂 (Literally!) This was a puzzle I solved really quickly – a good thing for a tough day.
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!

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Wordle #512


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: “Valet” gives me both of my problem children – “A” and “E” in the wrong places.
Line 2: Here we go again!
Line 3: At least I have placed the “A” and the “E”, but what’s with not being able to find any consonants?
Line 4: You know you’re desperate when you start guessing “Q” words. It’s one thing when the gamble pays off, but when not, it looks kind of stupid.
Line 5: Is there a third vowel? Yes! Finally some progress!
Line 6: By this time, “inane” was pretty much all that I could think of that fit between the “I” and the “A” and the “E” with the letters left. However, I was not sure at all that I had this and was quite relieved that I got it. I think this was even harder than “mummy“!
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!

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Praying the Psalter — Raising Saints

Our Psalter Group will begin praying the Psalter tomorrow. We each pray a kathisma per day, and we finish by praying a Lord, have mercy for each person in the group. 55 more words
Praying the Psalter — Raising Saints