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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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Wordless Wednesday #3 – Answering the Hypothetical
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Wordle #486
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Wordle explanations are posted a day late to ensure that no one accidentally sees the solution before playing.
Line 1: This is quite nice – we know what 4 of the 5 letters are!
Line 2: The problem is, all of these letters are so common, there’s a lot of ways to arrange them!
Line 3: We start with “stein”, now “geist” – Feel the German influence? (Though “stein” in English does not mean what “stein” in German does.) Finally, I’ve got some letters nailed down.
Line 4: Hmm… Could this actually be a word using the letter “X”? Yes it is! 🙂
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Wordle #485
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Wordle explanations are posted a day late to ensure that no one accidentally sees the solution before playing.
Line 1: You could do a lot worse than “spade” for a beginning word!
Line 2: So if I move the “E” to the middle position, I’m guessing that “T” is the most likely choice for a blend with the “S” – awesome! The “N” is a bonus too!
Line 3: “Stein” seems to be the best guess here, and it works! I thought the days of 3-guess games might be over, what with some of the silly starts, but I’m glad to have gotten this.
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Gratitude – Sunday #3 – A breath of hallelujah
This is the fourth week in a row that we’ve missed church; I realized at the end of my toddler’s “cold” that besides the cold, she almost certainly was teething, in which some of her symptoms and behaviors make a lot more sense.
It’s been a very tough week, and as much as taking the kids to church is stressful, I was planning on it. Then I woke up this morning and felt uncomfortable pressure in my head which eventually morphed into a headache around my right eye and the uncomfortable feeling as though too much motion might make me throw up. Were I alone, I still might have pushed through with it, but with kids, it just wasn’t going to happen. I feel guilty about it, even with two of the kids having minor cold symptoms as well (mostly occasional phlegmy coughs).
It is often hard to feel gratitude in times that are crazy stressful. Yet in the midst of it all, it’s absolutely gorgeous outside as we’re at the very colorful part of fall, full of soft, golden light, before the leaves pile on the ground and the sun’s light is cold.
I’m reminded as well, from the phone call with my priest friend that I mentioned last week, that despite everything, there’s a lot to be grateful for. I don’t mean this at all in the sense of “I’m glad I’m not those people, because they’re going through something so much worse”, but rather that there are a lot of people suffering through different things. It does no good to compare sorrows, but the realization that there are a lot of people out there who are dealing with really big things. It’s doesn’t make the path less lonely, per se, but it grants a perspective where one is less alone.
I think that’s the best I can do to explain this without getting into specific details. I certainly don’t want to use someone else’s tragedy as an example. All I do want to say is that where there is life, there is hope, but through the sacrifice of Jesus God gave us that hope which continues into the next life. The struggle is worth it, not just for ourselves but for our “neighbor” as well. It’s kind of the sense of where the title of this blog came from; that even in the midst of all the suffering we carry on a breath of hallelujah.
I am also very grateful that my kitchen sink is working enough better that at the moment, I can use both sinks. The disposal died and that has led to all sorts of problems with the sink on that side as well as the dishwasher which drains through the disposal. It’s caused a tremendous backup of dishes in the house, which has not helped my sense of being stressed.
I am grateful to be listening to my toddler, who is singing in the kitchen right now. She’s making a huge mess with a hamburger bun, but she only gets to be little once.
But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed. “And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled.” But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed.
1 Peter 3:14-16
#notmycar 🙂
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Wordle #484
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Wordle explanations are posted a day late to ensure that no one accidentally sees the solution before playing.
Line 1: The only thing caught here with “catch” is an “A” in the incorrect spot.
Line 2: New letters, moving the “A” to the middle, etc.
Line 3: Trying to figure out where the “P” goes, got the “E” as a bonus.
Line 4: I see here that the “P” has to go in the second position, but I totally forgot that it can make a blend with “S”. After several minutes of going through all sorts of vowel combinations, I realized my error and had the puzzle solved.
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Wordle #483
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Wordle explanations are posted a day late to ensure that no one accidentally sees the solution before playing.
Line 1: “Floor” didn’t do great things here.
Line 2: Breaking out a base word here – good ol’ “baste”. It does a little better.
Line 3: I know “watch” was a solution quite awhile ago, but I play it anyway, on the off chance that the “T” actually goes in the middle. This pays off mightily.
Line 4: Here’s the issue though. The word could be “catch”, “hatch”, “match”, or “patch”. I do not have enough guesses to guess all of these (though I think this would be the only thing allowed in hard mode). Instead, I play “campy” in order to see which of these letters should go in the first spot.
Line 5: What a “catch”! 🙂
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Wordle #482
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Wordle explanations are posted a day late to ensure that no one accidentally sees the solution before playing.
Line 1: All things considered, “equal” isn’t a terrible starting word, having three vowels (among them “E” and “A”) and an “L”. It’s the “Q” that’s the problem.
Line 2: I went with “fling”, as it’s one of my base words, and getting the “FL” correct is very helpful. We also know now that the vowel or vowels probably have to be “O”.
Line 3: “Flood” or “floor” come to mind, but I play “flowy” to use more letters, especially the “Y”.
Line 4: I guess I should have played “floor” or “flood” last turn, but with my luck, I would have probably played “flood” and I would have been solving it in four anyway.
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Wordle #481
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Wordle explanations are posted a day late to ensure that no one accidentally sees the solution before playing.
Line 1: “Ionic” did as well as expected for a beginning word.
Line 2: So now we start with a regular start word – “A” and “E”… not the biggest leads, but I’ll take what I can get.
Line 3: Interesting – no luck on the “EA” formulation either!
Line 4: I was having trouble thinking of words here… I had the odd thought, “Well, what if it’s “A” and then “QU”, since it couldn’t be “S” and “QU”, but I ended up going with this in order to put the “A” in one and “E” in three. still very odd that I didn’t get either vowel right. Happy to have the “L” as well.
Line 5: “Equal!” I guess my thinking about “Q” isn’t so crazy. Don’t know that it will help me much starting out, but it was a fun challenge nonetheless!
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Wordle #480
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: At least I got one of five with “valid”, because it’s not an optimal starting word.
Line 2: Introducing a few new letters… Interesting on the placement of the “I” and the appearance of “N” and “C”… “IC” is not unheard of for a word to end with.
Line 3: Score on the “IC” ending, and getting the “N” is a bonus – I bet I know what the answer is!
Line 4: What?! Not “sonic”? I bet I know what it has to be now!
Line 5: What?! Not “conic”? There’s only one option left now, isn’t there?
Line 6: Oh, my goodness! Isn’t it “ionic”, don’t’cha think? Just kidding! I just never considered that there were so many words with 5 letters that end in “-onic”, otherwise I probably would have played a word to eliminate those possibilities, since I don’t play hard mode. One of my normal starting words (baste/beast/feast) would have eliminated “S” and “T” as possibilities, but I’m having fun wit the challenge of the weird starting words.
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Wordless Wednesday #2 – Broken Promises
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Breath of Hallelujah 