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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 #442
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Wordle explanations are posted a day late to ensure that no one accidentally sees the solution before playing.
Line 1: Starting with “baste” again, and the word has “T” and “E”, but in different places.
Line 2: More letters, but still all in the incorrect spaces
Line 3: This really wasn’t my top game, obviously “I” and “N” are in the same places, but I was so tired, I didn’t even notice that until after I had played the word.
Line 4: What in the world is “niter”? (Niter definition) At the very least, letters are finally in the correct position, which leaves only one word…
Line 5: “Inter” – and of course, it took me a minute to realize it as it is as a word in its own right – as in “he was interred at Riverview Cemetery” – rather than the prefix that heads so many of our tech terms now. Yes, I was really tired when I did this.
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Wordle #441
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: Starting with “baste” again. No luck here.
Line 2: On to the next base word. “G” and “L”, but not starting the word, because “L” isn’t in the second place.
Line 3: My next guess is to move the “L” to the 4th position and turn it into an “LY” word. “Godly” fits the bill, and all three of the correct letters are now in the right places.
Line 4: I would have rather have had something that didn’t have the double “L”, but being as I had used “A”, “E”, “I”, and “O” and none of those vowels are in the puzzle, I figured that the vowel had to be “U”, and “gully” was the only thing that came to mind. Thankfully, it was the correct word!
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Wordle #440
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: Using “baste’ again. Only letter here is “A” but in the wrong position
Line 2: Playing “champ”, as it kind of belongs to the “base words”. It does really, really well here. 🙂
Line 3: Third time’s the “charm”, isn’t it?
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Wordle #439
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Wordle explanations are posted a day late to ensure that no one accidentally sees the solution before playing.
Line 1: I changed up one of my base words to make it more common to get an ending “E”. Unfortunately, it didn’t help here, because none of the letters are in this word!
Line 2: So, where I changed up one base word, I thought to myself, “Why not do that again?”. This was slightly better, in that we can see that there’s an “I” in the word.
Line 3: Considering that an “I” would most likely be in one of the three middle spots, I thought maybe an “oi” combination would be appropriate. “GR” seems to be the most likely blend with the unused letters.
Line 4: It’s quite curious that there is “I” and “N” and “G” in the word, but “ING” doesn’t end the word. What is even more curious is that the “N” and the “G” are now in the correct spots, but the “I” is not. Therefore the “I” has to start or end the word. It’s more likely, in general, that “I” will start the word, but as I look at this, I can think of one major exception…
Line 5: Bingo! “Fungi”
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Every New Beginning…
…comes from some other beginning’s end
So sing the band Semisonic, and I could do a music memory post on it, but I’d be sidetracked from just wanting to keep it short.
It’s the beginning of the Liturgical Year in the Orthodox Church. As we know with all these things, the beginning of the year comes always with the end of the old one, new pages to fill, so to speak, and a putting away of the book that has been written.
It’s been a day like that today.
I actually saw the band Semisonic perform when this song was quite popular; the venue had horrible acoustics, and most of the people were not familiar with most of their music. It was kind of hilarious; once this song played, a lot of people headed for the exits, not really aware that it wasn’t the end of their set – however, even as the next two songs played, it didn’t stop people from leaving.
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Wordle #438
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 of my typical start words. Oh, boy, back to the lone “E” in the incorrect place. Maybe I need to find a different starting word that ends in “E”
Line 2: Yay! “E” and “I” – still lots of opportunities out there but this helps a good bit.Most of the time, I like to avoid the double letters, but here, I figured there was a good chance of two “E”s being in the word, but I was wrong. At least this possibility is eliminated.Most of the time, I like to avoid the double letters, but here, I figured there was a good chance of two “E”s being in the word, but I was wrong. At least this possibility is eliminated.
Line 3: Another letter, yay! 🙂
Line 4: I was contemplating finding a word that started with “P”, but “G” was my other strong contender. With “gripe”, I get to try both of them.
Line 5: Another “Z” word! At least this time I got it!
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Wordle #437
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 of my typical start words. This is promising; “T” is correct, and “E” and “S” are just placed incorrectly
Line 2: Most of the time, I like to avoid the double letters, but here, I figured there was a good chance of two “E”s being in the word, but I was wrong. At least this possibility is eliminated.
Line 3: With the “S” now having to be in position #2 or #3, could the word end in “SET”? Yes!
Line 4: If it wasn’t “inset”, “onset” was the other choice.
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Wordle #436
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 of my typical start words. “F” and “E” but in the wrong places.
Line 2: Let’s move the “F” and “E” to the end. No luck on that front, but the “I” is nice.
Line 3: I was lucky on this, but I was still thinking that the “F” and “E” went together somehow. I didn’t think that the word started “FEI”, so I went with something that ended “IEF” and “chief” was the first thing that came to mind.
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Of All the Things I Miss…
…I miss my mind the most!
But right now, I’d be happy to find my wallet or one of my pairs of glasses!
Yes, it’s an old joke, but when I get stressed about things, very often I start losing things. I can still legally drive without my glasses, but I feel much better having them. As for the wallet – it wasn’t turned in at the last store I was at on Friday, so I think there’s a good chance it’s around the house somewhere. My mind was just in a different place as we rushed home after my 5-year-old threw up all over the floor in the candy aisle of 5 Below. (I’m very sorry about that. On the other hand, I’m also not stressing too much about that happening in a store. I’ve worked retail and service and I’ve had to deal with that sort of thing as an employee and… it’s unpleasant, but it happens. As an FYI, drunk puke is much worse.)
In any case, I probably won’t have another “real” post until Friday or Saturday. Life is crazy & prayers for us are appreciated.
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Wordle #435
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.
I think this is the second time in about 200 where I failed to get the word – see the tragedy unfold! *L*
Line 1: One of my typical start words. “E” and “A” It helps a little, I guess.
Line 2: “E” and “A” again. Spectacular!
Line 3: “A” and “E” Help please?
Line 4: Well, I guess “A” and “E” are in the right place now.
Line 5: Can I please get any more letters? Please?
Line 6: Well, if I had a line 7, I’d definitely get it! This was tough! I was trying to think of something that ended in “ange” but the letters that would have gone with that had already been used. Unfortunately, “A” and “E” are so common, it made it really hard to narrow it down. Now to start a new streak!
Did you get this Wordle? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy Gaming!
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Breath of Hallelujah 