roosje: {little rose}
Sunday, May 15, 2022
Well That's Better At Least
Saturday, May 14, 2022
Here I am again
I booked a plane ticket for mid-summer for me to be at my sister's foster son's birthday party. He will be 3. And so far it seems that his bioDad, in the end, will have him (as in take him from my sister and brother-in-law). We were told originally, and until last year, that he was going to be in our forever family. I am 46 next birthday and have no children, which was one of my biggest dreams of my life that did not come true. So you can understand that this is very hard for me personally. Losing my foster nephew who I held as a baby thinking, as we all did, that he was going to be adopted by my sister (like his half sister was the summer before he was born) is incredibly painful.
I can't go into more details than this other than to say that the foster care system failed numerous times in the management of this case and the failures themselves are awful for everyone (including the biodad).
I can only ask your prayers as we have no choice in traveling this unexpected path of grief.
Monday, May 09, 2022
16 Pairs of Socks
Sunday, May 08, 2022
Beauty for today
Isn't this plate/saucer and teacup darling? in MINT condition! Got on Friday at the VNA rummage sale. Thursday night I had terrible insomina again so taking it much easier this coming week.
Sending my love to all those grieving today on what for others is a happy Mother's day.
God is with us and He loves us.
Thursday, May 05, 2022
I can only say this once
Tuesday, April 26, 2022
Bright Tuesday 2022
Monday, April 25, 2022
Bright Monday 2022
Sunday, April 24, 2022
Friday, April 22, 2022
sleep that elusive sleep
Friday, April 15, 2022
Onward
Great Lent has ended... now for the bridge between Lent and Holy Week... I am glad... my heart has a lot of heaviness about some things in the world as it is now... how deeply we need Christ and the immersive Holy Week to reorient our lives!
May God bless us and save us and have mercy on us!
Wednesday, April 06, 2022
beginning to turn towards Pascha
Once Again, I Can't Sleep...
I may have slept but if I did, I woke again.
So. Here I am. It's 12:30 AM EST here. I am not overly worried about sleep right now because I know I still have a chance at it and overall have been sleeping better again.
So yesterday (Tuesday) my Husband was back at work again (as in office, in NYC). He goes in sometimes now, the virus situation here is stable at the moment. And I do mean at the moment, I have no idea when and if it will surge again. This is profoundly a time when all we can do is 'constantly pivot' as things are in a great deal of flux.
I feel like I am learning to do that in life. I feel in ways that I am growing up a lot. I mean, I know I am an adult, I am 45 years old now. But I have had to do a lot of growing, learning, as we all hope we are doing. Some of the work in this way has taken me decades.
Like I used to not know what to do with sadness. Or anxiety. And I will always struggle with both. I am wired that way.
BUT. I am not as afraid of it. And anxiety is harder for me to deal with than sadness. Here's the thing:
Learning to deal with hard emotions is a lot of work. For me, I have realized some simple but deep truths:
*don't ignore or avoid the feeling of sadness or worry. Instead FEEL it. Acknowlege it. BUT. Don't Get Stuck In It.*
So. Yeah. My writing project helps me not get stuck. I am reading, slowly, a book of short stories by Dorothy Sayers so I don't get stuck in it.
Another way to say it is:
*Change the Channel.*
If I start shutting down because of huge anxiety then it's time to PIVOT. It's time to do something else. Then the name of the game is DISTRACT myself about what I am worried about so that I don't get stuck there and instead can move on to something else and REBALANCE.
It's not about denial of worry. It's what I have learned to do WITH IT.
And if I stuff it down and ignore it, and don't look at it at all, then I will merely have it blow up later (often the same day) and will be shut down by it.
Feel it. Acknowlege it. Don't Get Stuck In it.
I mean if I was Saintly I would just be so aware of God's presence and peace while living in my life with all it's disperate struggles. Since I am not, the above is how I have learned to deal with it.
And yes, prayer should be part of it. But seriously if I am getting stuck I will do anything (that still is God honouring) to get past it. Reading a little bit of Agatha Christie to do so is fully OK.
Anxiety used to shut me out and shut me down.
Learning to cope with one's own self is a huge process. And I will be learning as long as I live as I know that, for instance, anxiety, is a huge struggle for me personally.
Yesterday, which is kind of still ongoing since I am not sure if I fully slept yet, was a good day. I had the house to myself (rare since the pandemic began). I did some research for my writing project. Ordered 2 books on it. My mind continued to be amazed (mind blown) about what I am learning.
I loved this by a new to me author who, in her case, wound up writing huge novels that had huge sucess
Monday, April 04, 2022
today and an unexpected gift
A friend and I just finally exchanged Christmas (!) gifts yesterday, Sunday. We were busy so opened our gift today. And inside was this beautiful rushnyk. It's vintage, made in Lviv Ukriane when it was still part of the USSR (it had a tag, I translated it with google's help!).
I already know that I will put it on my table where I have my writing table or my 'tea for two' table. I will change it out soon for Pascha.
You can imagine, realizing my friend found this for me months ago, had it for me in January (we kept missing each other) and now I am given it. Well. So many layers of meaning.
Today was a pretty good day. This is a very busy week. I have something everyday till next Monday (thankfully tomorrow I can be home, it's online stuff).
thank you again everyone who left a comment. I really appreciate each and everyone.
May God have mercy on us all.
Sunday, April 03, 2022
I need to write this down
first thanks so much everyone who commented or emailed me about my last post. I can't say anything more about it but thank you so very much.
I want to share a story about the w-a-r and this is your 'trigger warning' because one thing I share is especially heartbreaking.
Ok. So recently I was talking with one of my friends with Ukrianian connections. I know lots of people that fit that catagory.
It was heartwrenching.
It was a story of a woman who had to grab her children, her sister's children and FLEE because of the w-a-r ... on her way to a safe place to go into Poland, she saw a two year old child (this is going to be hard to read FYI). The child was sitting all alone on top of his recently killed mother. My friend pronounced the word killed as 'kilt' which I looked up and Google told me this:
As verbs the difference between kill and kilt
And that woman with her own children, her sister's children, saw this young child, two years old on top of it's dead mother, grabbed the orphaned baby and ran to the escape into Poland.
She gathered up the child like the verb kilt.
So I don't know about you, but I am crying just writing this so I remember and can tell you about it.
Thankfully she did not have problems at the boarder (no papers on the child to identify the child or mother) but this is w-a-r and she could not leave a child at 2 in the chaos with a mother who no longer is alive to care for the child.
She is working on getting legal papers for the child now.
The person narrating this to me told me that the first week of the w-a-r she could not sleep and does not even remember feeding her own children. And this person is someone Stateside who has family overseas were the w-a-r is.
Yeah.
So.
I cried about this recently again.
This is why I can't read too much news. I can't because I am not only a highly sensitive person; but because I can get news first hand from many who I know personally.
Talk about getting a crash course on life and what it means to be a Christian.
But these stories are so important. And so, I am recording it here, to have a small marker as a tribute to the awful tragegy and pain of w-a-r.
*******
Other than this, I am doing pretty well. My writing project continues to hold me up and hold my interest. I am in grief but also functioning. I still laugh, wash the dishes, bake. I get lost in thoughts about math. Or I think about ideas and connections between them. I got news of a couple's upcoming marriage and rejoiced.
****
May God have mercy on us all.
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
Here we are again. Wednesday midpoint of Great Lent 2022
Monday, March 28, 2022
Monday, March 21, 2022
A Special Tea Time
Thursday, March 17, 2022
Made my Favourite Coconut Cream Scones
Presanctified Second Wednesday of Great Lent
Friday, March 11, 2022
First Friday of Great Lent 2022
Monday, March 07, 2022
I forgot to finish my lunch
and when I came to myself, I realized why. Grief my friend, pure and simple grief. The world events in Ukraine have deeply grieved me. If you are a long time reader, I mean long time reader, then you know that in Ottawa the family that adopted (not literally as in legally my family in MI are alive and well) me is Ukrainian. I used to talk here about my Ukrainian Mother. And like most immigrants they have family and friends still there.
This has been a termendous shock to me, really and while I have talked about it to my Husband, to a dear friend in Bucharest (for 4 wonderful hours), it is still sinking in.
So I am silent a lot when I am in certain types of grief and I may not write much here about it again hard to say, I don't plan my days in detail or what I write here.
Picture is of some Lenten books. That cloth you see is from Ukraine. This is not new, it was used in our wedding, my Ukrainian family gave it to me as a gift, along with the one in our chapel which is hand stitched and completely and amazingly beautiful.
So I got a cold, a doozy of one, a week ago Tuesday. Cancelled my Thursday NYC trip. Cancelled my tea on Friday. Saturday night my Husband, late, started not feeling right and by Sunday morning sure enough, he got my doozy of a cold. So we are struggling a long as much as we can. We both stayed home yesterday and missed a really special church service (forgiveness vespers) but it could not be helped.
I am trying to read this book for Lent with a few church lady friends. This stanza (pictured above) really impacted me: how easy it is to look at world events and not see that we ourselves are making war on our own souls by our sins.
I feel like I am seeing, in my shock and grief, how hard it is to live as Christ commanded: to love, forgive, pray for one's enemies. Our hearts are called to Christ not to the world, not to tragic events, not even, really, to sides of difficult world equations; we are called to no other than to CHRIST and to be by HIS side.
Wishing everyone God's mercy, protection and help as we enter Great Lent again this year...
Monday, February 28, 2022
NYC checkboxes complete
Sunday, February 27, 2022
So Much
My heart within me is distressed. ~ Psalm 143:4 NKJV
***
This week for me has not only had world-wide upsets
Tuesday, February 22, 2022
At last the dishes are done
It's before 11 PM and the evening is mine now. I am relieved that I got most things tidy. I am carefully re-reading a Madeleine L'Engle novel, one that I consider to be one of her hardest to read.
I LOVED the luxury tea blend shown above.
The foster nephew situation remains uncertain, complex and difficult.
I made chili and corn bread today. Last week for meat before Pascha!
God help us all!