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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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Wordle #479
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: “Enjoy” is not the optimal start word, but it could be worse. However, it played out as well as I expected here!
Line 2: Going for all new letters here – “flash” gives me the “A” and “L”, but in the wrong places.
Line 3: I was really struggling for a word here, and “laird” sounded enough like I word that I tried it without knowing what it was. It did good, though, and got me to 4 of the five letters.
Line 4: Knowing that the word didn’t start “ia” (iambic is six letters after all!), logically, the word would have to end “ALID”. It still took me a minute to come up with “valid”.
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Support our Schools
In the entire United States, there are only about fifty Orthodox Christian schools for all or part of kindergarten through 12th grade (K-8 and high school). A few years ago, I did a research project to try to identify all the Orthodox schools in the US and how the normal Orthodox person can support these schools, even if they don’t have a personal connection to them.
As it stands now, a lot of this information needs to be updated before I republish the list; Target, for instance, discontinued their school fundraiser program; Campbell’s soups, which probably had the first big corporate school fundraiser program also discontinued their program (soup can labels); General Mills has completely revamped their Box Tops for Education program, etc.
However, I did find a corporate fundraising program that I didn’t know about that includes a number of Orthodox schools. Casey’s (also known as Casey’s General Store) is a chain of gas stations and convenience stores which currently has over 2000 locations in 17 states – mostly in the Midwest. They have an app (like all big stores these days, it seems) where one can collect loyalty points. The interesting thing, though, is that these loyalty points can be converted into cash donations for schools – and private schools aren’t excluded.
I’ve checked, and there are a number of Orthodox Schools listed in their school directory. Anyone who shops at Casey’s can participate; there is no requirement that one live within a certain distance or have kids in the school. Here’s what it will look like in the app once it’s set up:
The more people who know about these things, the better the chances of higher participation, and the better for the schools.
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Wordle #478
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: “Howdy” is certainly an … interesting … word to begin with. I’m in luck here, though, the “Y” is in the final spot again and there’s an “O” somewhere in the word.
Line 2: Now, I know “glory” was the solution to Wordle #461, but I played it anyway in order to get a word that was consonant-consonant-“O”-consonant-“Y”. There are quite a few out there, but my brain isn’t always working so well.
Line 3: There was a lot of luck here, but here’s how my mind got to “enjoy”. I figured, first, that it was more likely that the “O” was in the 4th place as opposed to the first. In that case, I needed a word that ended in “OY”. The problem is that I had already played “H”, “R”, and “L”, which I thought were probably the most common to find in a word ending in “Y”. (No words ending “LY” or words like “decoy”, for example.) The next word that came to mind was “enjoy”, and I thought that that would be quite sneaky, especially as it is one of the few words that have a “J” but not at the beginning of the word. I couldn’t resist but play it, and I lucked out!
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Gratitude – A Sunday thing?
There are few things quite so frustrating as having a toddler with a cold at home, especially if said toddler doesn’t talk very much and really only wants to snuggle with mama in order to feel better.
Last week was tough week. Youngest Daughter wasn’t the only one not feeling well, though with the older kids, it’s been more of a day here and a day there. Furthermore, it’s easier to physically disconnect – none of the others follow me around and cry when they can’t be held when they are sick.
Yes, this was supposed to be a Sunday post, but like many things, it’s been postponed until the time that I have some little bit of breathing room.
In any case, apart from trying to keep everyone healthy, it was the type of week that sometimes one just has to get through. I don’t mean to make light of the fact that each day is a God-given gift, because that is the truth. No day that He creates is bad. Yet we live in a fallen world, and there are things that come in that create tremendous loads of strife and stress. It’s during these times, it’s important to still remember what is good.
In the midst of kind of feeling like I was falling apart, I contacted a priest whom I have known for a long time and also consider a friend. Despite the fairly late hour, he was there to listen, and I am extremely grateful for that.
Our first quince ever! (Gretchen Joanna mentioned quince recently as well)
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Wordle #477
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: “Vigor” certainly isn’t the greatest starting word, but at least it gave me an “O”!
Line 2: Any more letters? Any correct spots? No on both.
Line 3: And… Once again, the same thing
Line 4: This is where I really got worried as to whether I would solve this or not. Two letters in four guesses, and only one in the correct spot… Ouch!
Line 5: Finally… some progress!
Line 6: By this time, I had 4 letters, and knew where they had to go, but when it gets down to the wire like this, I still worry that there’s some possibility I haven’t considered. Interesting that I didn’t try an “A”. In this case, it really wouldn’t have helped, but I notice that because I am used to starting with certain letters, and when I don’t, I don’t always remember to play all of those “common” letters. I’m just glad I got it!
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Wordle #476
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: I knew “dandy” was going to be a terrible starting word, and I was not disappointed here!
Line 2: Luckily, “storm” gives me a little bit more – “O” and “R” but in the wrong places.
Line 3: One more letter, but all in the wrong places.
Line 4: Being as the “O” is neither in the first or second spots, I think it’s fairly unlikely that it’s going to be a word with “OU”, so I pick a word with “O” and “I”, but separately. I am shocked the word does so well – finally things are falling into place!
Line 5: And… it couldn’t have been “rigor”, now, could it? However, “vigor” it is!
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Wordle #475
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.
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Line 1: “Sloth” isn’t a terrible word to start with, but no luck here with the letters!
Line 2: Slightly better luck with “cramp”, but an “A” in the wrong place doesn’t tell me a whole lot.
Line 3: Considering the “A” isn’t in position 3, I’m moving it to position #2. Doing that, and not using letters that have already been eliminated, I make a silly guess that I didn’t even know was a word, and it actually does pretty well!
Line 4: Looking at what is there from the last line, “dandy” is the first thing that comes to mind, so I play it, even with having two “D”s. And… “Dandy” it is! (This might be the first Wordle I’ve played without using the letter “E”.)
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Wordle #474
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.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases through affiliate links to Amazon.com.
Line 1: So now I got the bright idea to start with the solution word from the day before. On one hand, it means I’ll never get the word on try #1. On the other, it’s an interesting little challenge. Here, we have the “H” correct already, and an “S” somewhere else in the word.
Line 2: If there is an “H” at the end, and the word doesn’t end in “SH”, “TH” is another good guess, and if that’s the case, the “S” is most likely in the first spot. I was happy that all those guesses panned out as well as the fact that there was an “O” that we now know has to go in spot #3.
Line 3: Now, just a matter of figuring out what could be in spot #2. “L” – Yes! “Sloth!”
(As an aside, sloths will always remind me of this book – Score One for the Sloths)
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Wordle #473
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: I’m just mixing things up right now, but “leash” did well for me!
Line 2: This was extremely lucky, but there’s some strategy behind it. Since the “A” wasn’t in position 3, I figured that if it were in 1, it would be A-consonant-vowel-“SH”. My brain was freezing on that, so I went with the other possibility, that “A” was in position 2, and the word was consonant-“A”-consonant-“SH”. The first word that came to mind in this case was “marsh”, and it’s what the answer ended up being. I love solving Wordles in 2! 🙂
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Wordless Wednesday (#1?)
I saw over at The Many Hats of an Orthodox Mom a Wordless Wednesday this morning, and figured I would join along. I don’t know if I’ll make it a regular thing (or even if I’ll do it again at all) but I’ll do it today.
Autumn people
A response to this post by Bishop +Seraphim (Sigrist).
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Breath of Hallelujah 