Palm Sunday, Lazarus Saturday, and Holy Week!

It's all beginning! 

We had a really nice Palm Sunday... and were

back in church for Bridegroom Matins...

we went out afterwards with our favourite 

older candle desk man to our dinner 

for dinner....

***

My Aunt is in ICU and is stable.

She is having a new medical treatment

and we really did not know if it would go well.

So far it's going much better than expected.

Lots of people have been praying.

***

I may not update much this week.

Wishing everyone a blessed Holy Week

and a Blessed Easter-tide to all who celebrated today!

***

May the Good Lord carry us to Pascha! 

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday was beautiful.

***

My Munchkin is here now!

This afternoon Mr Husband helped clean up our home,

before the Munchkin came.

Today is also the anniversary of my Husband's 

+adult godson's falling asleep in the Lord,

so Munchkin (his son) and I did lots of prayers for his 

+father at various icons at church when we lit 

candles together.

The Bishop was there and gave a really great talk,

including how at death Christ is right there, 

ready to carry one's soul to heaven.

He spoke a lot about the love of God and of 

these Holy Days.

It was very moving.

***

Tomorrow the Munchkin and I have many fun

plans! Including watching Mary Poppins!

Of course I have lots of Orthodox books he can read,

and tonight we read a Gospel before bed, normal stuff, right?

But I am glad to give him some fun things too,

life has enough hard in it and some joy and cozy times

are important to build into a child's life.

DV we will go to Bride Groom Matins again at night,

and light more candles together!

***

I am so relieved that the house is clean and that the

baking is all done.

Now I ask that God will help us honour 

and live Holy Week... 

Lazarus Saturday, Cheese Pascha making, and Palm Sunday Vespers

My friend Mary's recipe for Cheese Pascha:

The recipe is 2 lbs farmer's cheese, 1 lb cream cheese, 5 hard-boiled egg yolks, 1/2 lb butter, 1 lb sugar (I use less), 1 sm carton of whipping cream (1/2 pint), 1 Tb. flour (I left out), 1 tsp vanilla. I drain mine in a smallish bowl but change it a few times and I don't weight it if it's been frozen. It still seems to drain fine.

***

We were at liturgy this morning for Lazarus Saturday and 

later vespers for Palm Sunday.

In between lunch, a needed nap, and vespers I made the 

simple version cheese Pascha.

This is the first time I ever made it,

and the first time I used farmers cheese.

I was going to use a more complicated recipe that called for 3lbs 

farmers cheese, so I upped the recipe by .5 for all measurements in this recipe,

with Mr Husband's help! 

***

Munchkin comes tomorrow.

Please pray that all goes well.

I am getting really excited for Holy Week!

Holy Weekend ~ Palm Sunday ~ Watching for Christ the Bridegroom

Palm Sunday: we hold our Palms or Pussy Willows throughout 

the service, we too standing to welcome and worship the Lord.

Fittingly, as so many who welcomed and worshiped the Lord

abandoned Him in His Passion,

we ended the day with the first of the Bridegroom Matins.
The cry to awake, to watch, to wait for Christ is heard,

deeply, beautifully, prayerfully with great expectation

but also with the most important of warnings as

we are weak, we fall asleep, we forget to 

have enough oil to light our lamps, 

watching for Christ our 

Beloved Bridegroom.

Behold the Bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is the servant whom he shall find watching, and unworthy is the servant whom he shall find heedless.

Beware, therefore, oh my soul. Do not be weighed down with sleep, lest you be given up to death, and lest you be shut out of the kingdom.

But rouse yourself, crying, Holy, Holy, Holy are Thou O God.

Through the Theotokos, have mercy on us.

*

*

May the Lord carry us weak ones to Pascha.

The Last Day of Great Lent 2014

Whew!!

We made it!!! 

*

The last day of Great Lent... 

I heard a great set of talks recently*

and was reminded again of how we can't

'do' Great Lent or in other words,

we always fall short of what we could have done in Lent

or, move over, we can't do it.

If one thinks they had a "successful" Lent,

the suggestion is that they start over again... 

*

We are weak.

We need's God's mercy.

He alone can give us the fruit that we desire to give to Christ

and the end of Lent.

*

Always reassuring... 

*

Steps towards a bit 'better' can be made, however,

and, moreover, continued.

Simple ones I find are best.

I have been, as I am guessing many are, struggling 

with how much technology takes up my time,

to the point that I had to fully admit that it was not just taking up time,

it was taking over my life and that a full ADDICTION 

to the distraction of the Internet was upon me.

What really drove it home to me, or confirmed this 

was a homily on technology and enslavement.*

I knew I had to figure out better ways...

*

It's going to take a long time before I know what I can do.

I think of going off Facebook forever and then

a dear friend's child, who I am knitting the 

above blanket, gets ill and if I don't go on FB to her 

Mother's page, I won't know what is going on.

So I go there but only there and then am off.

I hope to continue this.

*

Blogs are another story for me. 

I love them.

Still figuring that out.

I am not leaving the blog world here or else where.

But how to balance my time, it's a never ending struggle.

*

I learned one thing though:

If I turn off my wifi and data on my smart phone before

evening prayers and don't turn it on until after morning

prayers and breakfast,

then I will not so easily weaken in my resolve to not check

email before morning prayers.

*

Everyone is going to have to find their own ways, 

but this is something I have been trying to learn to better

balance this Lent.

I am going to seek to keep reading some of my 

Lenten reading that I am not finished with yet.

A lot of realism is needed in our life,

as in being realistic:

what we can really do, not what we wish we can do.

It takes thought, prayer and at times a good night sleep

and remembering to drink lots of water 

and perhaps a long walk or a short walk/s

to realize what is doable, what we can limit,

what is really going on, etc.

*

I have been aware of this workshop going on

on burnout by, from what I gathered, a 

quite well known Catholic

and while I could not be part of it much this Lent,

I really wanted to know more about burnout 

and what it has looked like for woman of our time

and also for mothers, of whom I have many friends

who are in the young-kid stage.

So I will reading and pondering these words, as I joined recently

to be able to save the PDFs and essays on these topics.

*

It's going to be a busy time for me here,

in the next while with packing (thank God I will have help),

the move, the unpacking and settling into a new home

with Mr. Husband.

Thank God our parents DV (Lord willing)

can come and help.... 

*

I am going to be glad to have the PDFs to read on 

how to be restored after huge things like a move

and am just going to have to take it one day at a time...

*

Blessed last day of Lent everyone!

I am hoping to make this chili this afternoon!

Blessed Holy Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday weekend 

to you all!! 

*if any one wants to hear these talks/homilies,

email me and I will pass the links on to you.

Palm Sunday, Holy Week and the love of knitting

I don't have any pictures from
this weekend at our
near-to-us church,
but it was beautiful, vast,
Palm branches green and outstretched like fans,
beautiful pussy willows with
warm grey fur
clergy in green
so profound:
realizing the link between Palm Sunday and Pentecost:
the coming of Christ
the coming of the Holy Spirit.
*
I've been tired.
Mr. Husband went to church Friday night and Saturday morning.
I stayed home,
mainly ensconced in bed with blankets,
sleeping, or knitting, with water bottle
near by and many books.
*
On Friday lunch I was falling asleep at the dinner table
while Mr. Husband was eating and talking to me;
it's been a tiring time.
*
But I managed to get an email out
and blog posts asking for prayer.
I know I am being prayed for.
*
I've been able to sleep through the night
for the last couple nights.
I made it to Saturday vespers,
Sunday liturgy and the
first of the Bridegroom matins.
*
That may sound like I am over doing it
but in truth when I was at church
I was sitting
and when at home often napping.
*
A few days before all this,
when I had insomnia
I re-found my first knitting project from my class:


I had way too many stitches and it ended up
being a nice looking mini-blanket.
But I had no way to know how to fix the top of it. 

So I frogged it all back.

But took some pictures first ~ 

~ before it became a very large ball of yarn.

I remember now that it was this that
I was knitting at the conference
in February,
when the med clinic doctor told me I could go to it
and I sat, listened, and knitted.
I went back to the second class
with the teacher surprised that I had knitted
through the whole skein.
What can I say?
I told them I was at a conference and had lots of time.
I think my teacher would be surprised to learn
of all the things I have knitted since then.
I hope one day to be well enough to go back
and tell her!
*
Meanwhile,
to assure you of how I am being cared for...
Mr. Husband made fish for us yesterday for lunch
on Palm Sunday
and I was napping the whole time.

The fish is underneath...
Mr. Husband is nothing if not efficient. :)
He has been a wonderful husband to me
through all of this.
*
Just last night I was looking up my order
for more baby wool so I can finish up the
baby blanket
and this morning when I awoke
there was a small box
Mr. Husband had put on my chair!
It had come late last night or early
this morning!

The needed wool
and the clearance knitting needles:
a set of 7 circular needles:
 10.5, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, and 35.

I've had fun looking at them,
comparing them to others I have
and thinking of all the things
I can experiment with. 

And I am so happy to know I can keep
knitting the baby blanket.

 

Who knew a year ago that I would be
collecting knitting needles,
yarn and dreaming of things to make?
*
And this weekend I started darning up old slippers of mine
that my Oma made over many years
and I always kept them,
even if the bottoms were very much done in.
It is surprisingly easy to fix them
now that I have yarn and the right
Large-Eye Blunt Needles...
*
I was aware of a deep contentment/happiness 
at being able to just sit and knit.
It reminded me of the love of solitude and 
of clean kitchen counters
I wrote about years before I was blogging
and wrote small poems...
*
And the beauty of the church this weekend;
I felt like I could of been in an Elizabeth Goudge book.
*
So while the exhaustion has been
at times quite high,
God is blessing me in the midst of it.
*
It's really a blessing to have a quiet life,
there are so many tragedies on a global scale
at all times,
that we know about more and more
with the Internet and
the like.
*
It is no wonder that I am drawn to reading
blogs of women who go to church, raise children,
knit and seek to make a safe haven for
their children to grow up in,
all the while chronicling the struggles of
everyday life of raising a family and
seeking to love God.
*
Well,
we do hope I can get better again and soon
but I am seeing at the same time,
anew ~ again ~ as if for the first time
how we are to rejoice in all things
and trust in God's mercy,
all the while asking for God's mercy on us.