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Sunday Gratitude – 5.IV.2026
To those celebrating today – Christ is Risen! – Happy Easter!
And then there are the “weird” ones here who are still waiting another week, among which I count myself. There have been a lot of services already – yesterday, I think I was in church for nearly four hours. I’ve really struggled this Lent; from the beginning, I felt less ready for it than most years and this year… wow. For the greater part of Lent, I believed that the Orthodox were also going to be celebrating Pascha today, and it was only looking at the calendar more carefully a couple of weeks ago when I realized that no, there’s a one-week difference. I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting to spend so much time in church this weekend, but I was at vigil last night, and I certainly had the feeling of moving from the darkness into the light, and by the time the service was over, there was an air of hopefulness and joy there. For that I am grateful. (My brain did fight against this on the way home, though. *sigh*)
I am grateful for the more spring-like weather, and the opportunity to be outside. I’m also grateful for my neighbor who invites me to come walking with her.
I am grateful for friends who take the time to talk even in the rain.
I am grateful for making it home in a storm the other day; I wasn’t expecting it, then all of a sudden, I was driving down this country highway with lightning flashes all around. I don’t think that they were very close, as there was only a tiny bit of thunder, but what a show! The next day, driving down those same roads, I could actually see how high the water is, and I’m grateful that there were no issues with low-lying stretches of road or the bridges.
Time to take the Christmas wreath down! I am thankful to have had a little bit of time to be outside with my kids, and I’m thankful that they have places around that they can enjoy riding their bikes through, and that they’ve been fine with this “exploring”.
I am thankful for the joy of singing.
I am thankful for the things that are showing signs of life (and even blooming) even after a very cold winter and long periods of neglect.
I am grateful for the opportunity to have been in contact with a number of people on this day, in the joy of Easter.
I am grateful for yet another sign that I’m not alone through the hard stuff.
Thank you so much for being here! Christ is Risen!
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Sunday Gratitude – 29.III.2026
I really hate it when it seems like I blink and yet another week has passed. Somehow so much of this time ends up feeling like a blur, and it seems like all that is left is a growing list of things that should have been done long ago, but haven’t been done yet.
In the meantime, though, I’ve been trying not to lose a sense of gratitude, and to also try to make the most of the days at hand. We’ve had a couple of days that have hit 70F, which has been amazing, and especially as the days are getting longer, it would be terrible if we didn’t do something to take advantage of the warmer weather. My younger son had a day off of school a couple of weeks back, and the two of us went out on our bikes and rode ten miles together, and it was amazing. He also started taking pictures with my camera that afternoon, so I’ll be sharing a few of those in this post.
A couple of weeks after the real birthday, my youngest, in kindergarten, had her first real birthday party. It was a bowling alley affair, and, per the terms of the contract, was less than two hours long, but for a group of 5 and 6 year olds, it was fine. I was completely stressed out over this for at least a week for a number of reasons, but it turned out really, really good. Even the weather held out, kind of… It started raining about the time that the party started, and it was still raining as people left. Had we started a couple of hours later, everybody would have been going home in sleet, because we had a blizzard come through the next day. The kids were thrilled to get the day off of school, and despite the crazy wind, we never lost power. The next day, our dear neighbor made a path for our car using a snowblower.
I’m grateful that even though I managed to break a spoke on the one bike (a different one than before), this happened in a place where I could ride to a place where I could leave the bike for a couple of days, and which was very close to the bike shop. On the night that this happened, I was also able to get a ride back home with one of the ladies from church. I’d never talked to her before, and she’s incredibly sweet, and lives just a couple of streets over from where I live.
I’m grateful for the amazing time I had at St. Haralambos in Niles a couple of weeks back. Not only were some very dear “real life” friends there, I finally got to meet Fr. Andrew Damick in person. We have been online acquaintances (friends) for over 20 years, and it seemed like high time to meet him in person. He actually recognized me by sight as well, which is crazy because it’s been a looong time since I posted any photos of myself that he might come across. 🙂 That was a lot of fun, though.
Breezy days and kites! I am grateful, as well, for the opportunity to visit an old friend and just enjoy sitting on the front step, having a conversation in the sunshine.
In many ways, I feel pulled very, very, very thin. There have been a lot of good things, to be sure, but there have been a number of very, very frustrating things as well. I don’t know; at this point, I’m not sure that I’ll ever have things “figured out”, but there’s a path to go forward on, and that’s the way through this all. Forgive me again for the blog silence – I truly am grateful for you.
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Orthodox Christian Marriage Webinar – November 14
Dr. Eve (Paraskeve) Tibbs, Ministry Lead for Christian Education for the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of San Francisco, is leading a webinar entitled “How Do We Understand Orthodox Marriage Today?” on November 14 at 8PM Eastern. It appears that the webinar is free. The link to register is here: http://bit.ly/orthodox-marriage-webinar .
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Wordle #508
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: Well, no misplaced “E”, but also nothing else!
Line 2: Playing some new letters… “A” and “R”, but in the wrong spots.
Line 3: Shuffling it up a bit, same situation for the “A” and the “R”.
Line 4: See if you can follow my logic here: My next guess for the placement of the “A” was in the second spot. As long as the “A” was there, I thought, why not put the “R” in front of it. Since “E” and “O” were already eliminated, I decided to try an “I”, because, especially if “A” is in the second place, there’s a second vowel. After having “RAI”, the first word that came to mind was “RAINY” and I played it, and I was pleasantly shocked that it worked!
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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HELP: Fire destroys Holy Archangel Michael Monastery — Orthodox Help
(from GoFundMe:) Please, first pray, and then look deep into your heart and see if you can help monetarily. Much is needed after such devastation. On November 7, 2022 early in the morning, a fire destroyed the only chapel and main building of the monastery. This monastery is surrounded by small cabins where the monastics […]
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Wordless Wednesday #6 – From the Waters of Oblivion
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Wordle #507
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: Oh, boy… The misplaced “E” again!
Line 2: Grinding through letters…
Line 3: Yay! The place for the “E” has been found! And more letters! 🙂
Line 4: Considering that “P” did not start the word, and considering that the “S” had not yet been played, I decided to try a word that started with “SP”. I knew that there had to be at least one “L” in the word, but the word that jumped out at me here was “spell”, which I played, and it ended up being correct!
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Election Day
So today is election day, and nothing instills more confidence of Wisconsin elections in me than seeing multiple cars with Illinois license plates parked in front of the polling place.
But we know that it’s all legit, of course… Must be rented vehicles or people driving up to make sure granny makes it to the polls, yes?
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Wordle #506
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: “Stale” did amazingly poorly for a beginning word today.
Line 2: Working through some letters – still haven’t found the place for the “E” and discovered an “I”, also misplaced.
Line 3: Obviously, it couldn’t have been “weigh” because of the placement of the “I”, but I wasn’t really paying attention, I guess. I did manage to get the right placement of the “E” and the “G” is a bonus as well.
Line 4: Being as it can’t be an “EI” word – and there are good number of them despite the “I before E rule” – I figure it is likely the pattern is consonant – “E” – consonant – “I” – consonant. “G” has to be one of the consonants, and is probably not at the end, because “IG” is not a common English word ending at all. (German is a different story, but I digress.) Again, I guess I wasn’t paying attention, because I got the “E” and the “I” and I even got an “N”, all in the correct spots (with a word I didn’t know was a word) but I forgot the “G”.
Line 5: Once I realized I forgot the “G”, it was quick deduction that the word was “begin”.
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Wordle #505
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: Another word with “E” and “A”.
Line 2: Just moving the “EA” a little in the word. The “A” is correct, so I think this might be a word that ends with “A” – consonant – “E”. It’s good to have the “T” as well.
Line 3: Making this a “ST” word paid off; just one letter incorrect… How many words can be made with this framework?
Line 4: Considering the consonants left, I figure I’ll go through words one letter at a time rather than make words with the possibilities.
Line 5: And the winner is – “stale”!
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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From the other — PEMPTOUSIA
By its very nature, the human soul expands beyond the bounds of this visible, earthly world of ours and penetrates the limitlessness of the beyond. But the same is true of sin. It’s as if the soul and sin aren’t of this world, but from the other. And this is, indeed, the case: the soul’s…
From the other — PEMPTOUSIA -
Gratitude on Sunday – #6
We’ve rolled on in to November, which in the United States, conjures up the idea of Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, it seems like Thanksgiving is more and more getting swallowed up by the more commercial Halloween and Christmas – apparently it’s harder to market a holiday that is supposed to be centered around thankfulness and gratitude. Then again, when the root of gratitude stems from getting away from an attitude of entitlement, particularly in relation to God, monetizing it to the hilt is completely antithetical to the stated purpose of the holiday. That being said, this year seems especially bad with all the “Black Friday all month” sales and specials as though Thanksgiving doesn’t even exist.
As tough as things are, I’m grateful to God for each day. I’m grateful for the grounding that church can provide, and people who also belong to the communion of saints.
Yes, and I’m thankful that I didn’t end up leaving my house keys in church. It’s a little thing, but with three who were not behaving well, I was pleasantly surprised to see at coffee hour that the house keys were still in my purse.
God’s promises are forever
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Breath of Hallelujah 