Spring Things

2010 notwithstanding, Lent and the Paschal season just don't seem to lend themselves to blogging for me. Maybe next winter I should write some posts and schedule them so I don't fall off the face of the internet during that very full time of the year. But perhaps you can just expect me to go on hiatus, and know that I'll likely show up again in June, we'll see. :) So what have I been up to? A lot of the same things as last year.

• Once again, I took some weekend trips to see friends and family. The second week in Lent, I headed down to Evansville for a surprise 65th birthday party for one of my aunts. I got my own surprise on my way back from church when my car (the one we bought less than a year ago) was totaled in a hit and run accident. Thankfully, although I was quite shaken up, I came out of it with only a small scratch on one arm and sore muscles. 
• Once again, we found ourselves unexpectedly in the market for a new car. After doing some research and looking at some used ones, we decided to buy a truly new car, not just new to us. My first ever. We realized that since we didn't have a trade-in to consider, a low-mileage compact used car like the one we had was actually pretty comparable in price to a new one, once you figured in the warranty. So we bought a new Hyundai Accent. It's green. It suits me down to the ground.

• Once again, we journeyed through Lent and Holy Week to the Feast of Feasts. And as always, I was slightly sad to see Ascension come along, bringing the end of singing Christ is Risen. And so, I say to you all: Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen! 
• Once again, I celebrated my birthday. 34 on Friday the 13th, but not just any Friday the 13th. It fell on Holy Friday. Somehow that always seems to be the case when my birthday falls on a Friday. With a birthday like that, I just consider it a moveable feast and celebrate during Bright Week. Actually this year I kind of dragged it out. We spent a weekend with my parents a few weeks later and celebrated with two Cincinnati favorites, dinner at the Grand Finale one night and Graeter's ice cream the next. Yummmm...
• Once again, I attended the Evergreen International Conference the last week in April. Last year I very much enjoyed traveling to Georgia for the conference. This year it was a bit closer to home, in Indianapolis. Not quite as much of an adventure, but it led James and me to play tourist in our hometown that week, which was fun. 
• Once again, I have been delighted by fresh vegetables with the start of the summer farmer's market season. 
• Once again, I've found a word game to play on my phone. This spring I've thrown over Word Feud in favor of Scramble with Friends. If you play, my user name is SarahinIndy. If you don't play, and you like Boggle, and need another time suck in your life, you can download the app for Android phones or iPhones. I think you can play it on Facebook as well.  
• Once again, we enjoyed some time with family over Memorial Day weekend. This year we stayed home, working and playing around the house, but my brother stopped in on his way back from a business trip in St. Louis. 
• Once again, we have spent some time working in the yard. Just a lot of clean-up so far, though. I have yet to get anything planted! Although the last month has been sorely lacking in precipitation, which doesn't bode well for the summer. Maybe I'll wait and plant some things in the fall.
• Once again, I squeezed in a few other things here and there...
• And continued to attempt to live a Christian life, again, with mixed success.

Feast of St. Nicholas

Blessed feast to you. Most people can't help but love St. Nicholas, and he is special to James and me because he was the patron of the church where we began inquiring about the Orthodox faith. We try to go there to celebrate the feast each year. Since James is working 50-60 hours a week right now, rather than going there for liturgy today, we went on Sunday when they had a meal in honor of their Patron. It turned out to be a good thing, because today would not have been a good day for me to be in the car.

I thought it would be fun to share a bit of the tradition of St. Nicholas with my co-workers this year. I made up these little bags of  "gold" to take them. Each one contains chocolate coins, a clementine and some mini candy canes. The bags are actually just squares cut from a T-shirt tied with ribbon. I like to re-purpose things for wrapping, and the simple bags are meant to evoke the bags of gold St. Nicholas is said to have given for dowries. According to tradition, St. Nicholas anonymously tossed a bag of gold into the window of an impoverished family on three different occasions, for each of three daughters. This saved the girls from being sold into slavery or prostitution. The bags of gold are said to have landed in the shoes of the girls set out by the fire to dry, and that's the basis of the tradition of setting out shoes or stockings to be filled with gifts on this feast and at Christmas time.

To personalize them for my co-workers, I made these salt dough gift tags/Christmas tree ornaments. I got the idea for them on Pinterest, where I kept seeing lovely ones like this:

Source: pinterest-project.blogspot.com via Sarah on Pinterest

It seemed simple enough, but isn't that always the way with crafts? I made some, and I think they're pretty cute, but they are a lot more rustic and homemade looking than what I was envisioning. It's true that they are simple enough to make. You just mix 2 parts flour to 1 part water and 1 part salt to make the dough. For little tags like these 1/2 tablespoon for each part times however many tags you want should about do it, with a little extra for mistakes. I definitely made mistakes!  Stamping letters backwards, not allowing enough room for the whole name...I started over several times. Once you've mixed as much dough as you need, knead it a little, roll it out about a quarter inch thick, cut your shapes, then stamp away. I stamped them on one side with my co-workers' names and the other side with a decorative stamp. The Christmasy stamps were part of the bounty from my mom's basement when she and my dad downsized their house, and the letter stamps I've had since I was a kid. The ribbon for the hangers is from my wedding. Spur of the moment crafters benefit from a slight tendency to hoard things. :)

So after I stamped them, I poked holes in them with the insert to a ball point pen and then I baked them at 325 for about a half hour. I've now seen other recipes say to bake at 250, and maybe they wouldn't have browned quite so much if I'd gone that route. I also recommend that you line your baking sheet with foil if it is not pristine, as the salt dough can pick up oil baked onto the sheet (Not that I would know, from experience, ahem.) Once they were cool, I gave them a few coats of Modge Podge for preservation, and I threaded some ribbon through them as hangers. I tied them to my little bags, and they're ready to go.

Naturally, I planned to give them to my co-workers today, but I'll keep it real by disclosing that I completely forgot to give them out! I spent the morning in a meeting with librarians from other libraries, and then had to leave work with a migraine. I'll have to pass them out tomorrow. I've only had a few migraines in my life, thankfully. I came home and slept, and I feel fine now.

Fast Food Friday: Pease Porridge Hot!

It hasn't been all decorating, all the time here lately. We've had all kinds of stuff to keep us busy so far this month. The first weekend of the month we took a quick jaunt to Ohio for my dad's birthday. I made this cake which was very well received. I strongly recommend it for all your festal chocolate cake needs. And that's high praise from me, because despite my abiding love of chocolate, I generally don't really care for chocolate cake. I made it by request of the birthday boy. The second weekend of November was jam-packed. On Saturday, I attended Holy Liturgy for the feast of St. Varnava of Indiana, as well as a very edifying lecture on the book of Revelation by Dr. Jeannie Constantinou, a Presvytera and professor who does an excellent podcast called Search the Scripture on Ancient Faith Radio. Then we went to a wedding on Sunday evening, which was lovely. We're having friends over for dinner tomorrow, and I need to do my shopping for Thanksgiving. Lots going on around here this month, and that's just the weekends!

It seems like the Nativity Fast snuck up on us, but here we are. We now turn our hearts to preparing for the joyous celebration of the Incarnation of our God and Lord, and attempt to humbly remember Him who humbled Himself to be born of a Virgin. During fasting seasons, I like to share recipes on Fridays, so here is one of my very favorites. (Do I always say that? I really do love fasting foods.) When it comes to split pea soup, I like it hot or even cold. I sincerely doubt it's ever lasted 9 days at my house, but I would probably like it nine days old, as well. Sadly, it's one of the least photogenic foods in the world. I felt obliged to include the picture of the view from our bedroom window the last week in October to make up for the image of pease porridge. The riot of red leaves has fallen, and the view is now almost as drab looking as the soup, so I'm thankful I have the picture to remember the brief glory we're treated to each year. 

Split Pea Soup

1 tsp oil (optional)
1 1/2 cups diced onion
1 cup diced carrot
1/2 cup diced celery
4 cups vegetable broth
4 cups water
1 lb dry split peas (about 2 1/4 cups)
1 tsp dried marjoram
1/4 tsp liquid smoke
Salt and pepper

Lightly brown your vegetables over medium high heat in a good sized pot. You can do this in oil or a splash of vegetable broth, as you like. Add in the broth, water, split peas, marjoram and liquid smoke. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low, and cover. Simmer for about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes, until the the split peas fall apart.  After 45 minutes check and stir occasionally. Add more water if needed or desired. I like my split pea soup good and thick in true pease porridge style. If you like it thinner, feel free to add more water. Add salt and pepper, to taste. It depends on how salty your broth is, and how salty your taste is.  My soup didn't need any more salt, and I like to give it a few good grinds of pepper.

21 Day Challenge, Day 18: Statement Jewelry

I was really excited about my outfit for today's challenge. I previously didn't own anything you could really call statement jewelry, unless that statement was a very subtle one. But last week I wore this T-shirt on jazz up your jeans day, and I just didn't think it was jazzy enough. I really wanted it to have some more pops of red, so when I saw that today was statement jewelry day, I knew I wanted a chunky red necklace. I didn't have a lot of time to be combing stores looking for something, so I just went to Michael's. They have a big bead selection, and they were having a sale. I bought three packs of these beads and some clear elastic cord. The packs of beads were about 5.60 each, and the cord was 2.50, so the necklace came out to about $20. Frankly, that was pretty painful to my cheapskate self, since I've been buying all my clothes at thrift stores. Luckily, I was returning some stuff I didn't need for a different project, so even with the 1.92 for 2 yards of ribbon for my belt, I only had to fork over about six bucks.

I have to say, I actually do think it was money well spent. I love the necklace, and I got tons of compliments on my outfit at work today. Since we'll be promoting Geek the Library through the spring, I'll be wearing this shirt a lot. I like having the red necklace to wear with this shirt, since I tend to look like death warmed over when I wear black next to my face. I think this necklace will also look great with turquoise. Plus it will be fun to wear at Christmas time. So, no regrets. I still have plenty of elastic cord, so I will probably make some more jewelry, too. Thanks to the 21 Day Challenge I will be checking thrift stores for jewelry and belts in the future.

I'd like to note that I wore my remix piece for the fourth time today. See the other looks here, here, and here. All four outfits were combinations I'd never worn before, and I thought they were pretty different looks. The neutral one was kind of blah, (too much neutral, not enough pop) but I really liked the others. I'd say overall the remix project was a success. I might try some starch when ironing this skirt in the future since it tends to get really wrinkly by the end of the day. The remix was a very fun and useful challenge.

Finally, I'd like to wish everyone a happy new year! It's a time of endings and new beginnings, and we are very nearly to the end of the 21 Day Challenge. I have had a great time, learned a lot, and enjoyed meeting some new people.

T-shirt: www.geekthelibrary.org ; Skirt: Target; Shoes: Keds; Belt:grosgrain ribbon, Michaels; Necklace: I made it, beads from Michaels

21 Day Challenge: Day 1

Here is my first outfit for the 21 Day Challenge. This is definitely going to be a learning experience. I've never read fashion blogs before, and I really don't enjoy shopping. For me clothes are pretty utilitarian. It's going to be interesting to try to think about them a little more creatively and step out of my usual comfort zone. I wouldn't say that I really did that here, but I have never worn these three pieces all together before.

Since I haven't bought clothes anywhere besides a thrift store in over a year, I don't know how helpful it is to share sources for my clothes, but that seems to be part of the deal. Here's the info, for what it's worth. My sweater is a hand-me-down from a friend, tag says Valerie Stevens. Top is from Old Navy, 10+ years ago. Skirt is from Target, 5+ years ago. I bought the shoes at Shoe Carnival 8 years ago (the summer I got married). I'm not sure what brand they are. Earrings were a gift.

One thing I've learned already is I feel completely awkward getting my picture taken for this. I'm so impressed with you bloggers who do this regularly, and have such lovely photos. Mine was taken in the Home Depot parking lot. A good reflection of my life lately. :)

The white eyelet skirt is what I will remix. It's pretty versatile, and I figure I might as well wear it now; summer will be gone before we know it. The top is kind of a gingham seersucker, and the sweater is trimmed in bugle beads. That's about all I have to say about my clothing, except that I wore blue today for the Dormition. I try to wear blue for the feasts of the Theotokos.

Joyous feast to my normal readers! I don't have the energy for two separate posts, so here is our church's new Dormition icon.

Transfiguration

Our parish has commissioned a set of festal icons from iconographer Dennis Bell, and we received three new ones this week. One of them was the Transfiguration, so not only did we have the blessing of the first fruits today, we had the blessing of the new icon. You can see it's still wet with holy water. I wish you could see it in person, instead of my poor effort with my cell phone camera. It's quite beautiful. I wanted to display it larger so that you could see some of the details. I had to edit the html of my blog template to change the margins, so please let me know if that's resulted in any weird formatting for you.

I also took some pictures during the blessing of the icon, but later when I was taking the picture of the icon itself, I wondered why the camera just wouldn't seem to focus. Then I realized the lens was smudged. That explains why my pictures have been so blurry this week! I wish I could pretend my picture of first fruits below is intentionally blurry for artistic reasons.  Ah, well. Sometimes I think I might enjoy getting a nice camera and learning photography, but for now I'll see if I can improve things simply by keeping the lens clean.

 

Tomatoes are the fruit of the vine for this Indiana girl, and the yellow tomato is literally the first fruit from that plant. I picked these this morning before liturgy. We sliced them up and ate them afterward, along with the grapes and other fruits which people had brought. It was lovely.  I hope you have had (or will have) a lovely feast day as well .

Joyous feast!

Things to which I have been up

Since the last time I wrote here I have:

• Spent a long weekend with our dear friends in Grand Rapids. Young men don't turn 6 every day, you know.
• Celebrated my own birthday. For my 6th birthday, I got a Peaches and Cream bicycle with a banana seat. For my 33rd, I got an enameled dutch oven and Legos.
• Entered with faith and love into Holy Week, and passed through it to celebrate the most glorious Resurrection of our Lord.
• Sung and proclaimed Christ is Risen! throughout the Paschal season. I'm sorry I didn't do so here this year, so I'll say it now: Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen! Because, of course, this is always true.
• Spent Bright Week in Decatur, Georgia for a conference for work, thanks to a grant. It was a really good conference, and I enjoyed Georgia very much. 
• Watched the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Braves in extra innings.

• Removed the wallpaper border in my bedroom, at long last.
• Loved heading straight to the farmer's market after work each Friday since the beginning of May.
• Gotten out of the cooking funk I was in, thanks to the joy of fresh veggies, and tried some tasty new recipes. I think I was really ready for the change of seasons. 
• Failed at finding my kitchen cleaning mojo when I got back in the cooking groove. Consequently it seems like the kitchen has been in a constant state of disaster lately. Ugh. 
• Planted my vegetable garden and my herb and flower pots.
• Weeded.
• Watered
• Weeded
• Watered.  Ad infinitum, it seems; we've had very little rain here since I planted the garden.
• Said good-bye to my beloved green VW Beetle. It needed over $3,000 of repairs. With much anguish, we decided it wasn't worth it to put that into the 10 year old car.

• Purchased a 2007 Honda Fit. It made more sense to put the $3000 toward a new car. I've mourned the Beetle, and am finding the new car to be a very good Fit for me.
• Spent Memorial Day weekend with my parents, and went to the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. It's huge. And free--if you're anywhere near Dayton, you should check it out. 
• Celebrated the Feast of Ascension, (speaking of things that are up).
• Signed up for Pinterest and have found it to be a lovely way to waste time, as well as a way to organize links that is fascinating to this cataloger's brain.
• Celebrated the Feast of Pentecost with green attire, kneeling, and a fund-raising dinner for a mission that's working to purchase a building.
• Spent some time with my grandmother.
• Been playing Word Feud. 
• Contemplated what I want for this space. I'm trying to decide whether it's valuable for me to establish some kind of discipline for when I post, or to just continue to let the blog be something I do when so inspired.
• Squeezed in a few other things here and there.
• Attempted to live a Christian life, with mixed success. 

And if you made it through that, we're pretty well caught up.

Fast Food Friday: Red beans and rice (belated)

I had totally forgotten how exhausting the first week of Lent is. I mean that in a completely good way. It's kind of exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. We don't even do the Canon of St. Andrew in my parish, but still church is occupying a whole lot more of my time. And I like that. I love Lent. I know that weak as I am, I could not keep up this pace of church-going and praying all the time, but it is my favorite time of year. I've promised to post Lenten recipes on Fridays, and I thought I was going to get this in under the wire. I got a phone call from one of my best friends and spent a few hours catching up instead, so it's a little late. This is oil-free, and is slightly adapted from Okay, So Now You're a Vegetarian by Lauren Butts.

2 cans dark red kidney beans--or any other red beans you like. I also sometimes use cooked dried beans instead.
1 cup vegetable broth--I use water plus vegetable bullion.
1 cup water
1 cup diced tomatoes (canned or fresh) I often use a little more than this, because I like tomatoes.
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp Tabasco sauce
1 cup diced onion
2 cloves minced garlic

Place all ingredients in a large pot. Cover and simmer about 45 minutes. The broth will thicken and beans will get more tender. Serve with cooked rice.  I serve it with brown rice, which takes about an hour to cook in my steamer, so I start the rice, and then start the beans.  

Note that most Worcestershire sauce is made with anchovies. If you want to avoid that, you can often purchase vegetarian Worcestershire at health food stores. I buy the Kroger store brand, which is one of those "accidentally" vegan products.  You might look at other store brands, if you don't have Kroger in your area. Also, for years before I discovered Kroger brand is vegetarian, I just substituted 1 tsp. molasses and 1/2 Tbsp. soy sauce for the Worcestershire sauce, which I think is just as tasty.

As I've mentioned, we love this with greens, like kale or collards.  We usually just layer it all in a bowl.  Also, as a person with southern roots, I think red beans and rice require cornbread on the side, and I still haven't settled on Lenten recipe for it. However, I recently found this recipe. I haven't had a chance to try it, but I thought I'd share it now.

What I Cooked: Cheesefare edition

I thought I'd share what I cooked for Cheesefare week today, rather than after the fast has begun. It was quite a week! I did make a fair amount of soup for my flu-fighter. He's on the mend now, thanks be to God, and even went to work on Friday. 

Sunday: Leftovers for me, canned chicken and rice soup for James--not his best Meatfare Sunday.

Monday: Egg drop soup. I'd never made this before, but it was really simple. I thought this would be the perfect thing for someone with a sore throat. Nourishing, tasty, and easy to swallow. Well, it was very nourishing and tasty, and I thought the leftovers made a terrific breakfast. Unfortunately, it didn't work out so great for James. Let's just say that the texture didn't bring the best thoughts to mind for someone having sinus issues.  

Tuesday: Tortellini soup. This was a big hit.

Wednesday: Macaroni and cheese, corn "soufflé," and roasted vegetables--for twenty.  I've mentioned before that most Wednesday nights we have prayer, adult study, and dinner at church. Usually that means I don't cook on Wednesdays, but occasionally I take my turn to cook for the whole group. I had volunteered for this week. So, on my way home from work on Tuesday I stopped and bought groceries. Then I whipped up a batch of tortellini soup for my poor sick guy, who ate it and went to sleep.

I proceeded to spend the rest of the evening cooking. I really enjoy cooking, so I had a good time making some of my favorite foods, listening to music, and hoping everyone would enjoy the meal I was preparing.  About midnight the mac and cheese was almost finished baking, and the other two dishes were done. I was contemplating whether to push on through and make a batch of brownies before going to bed, or to get up early to make them the next day. I'd almost decided to go ahead and make them (I'm not a morning person) when James came groggily into the room. "Are you cooking for church tomorrow?" he asked me. "Uh-huh," I replied. "It was canceled," he told me. "Father sent an email earlier today."

!!!!

















Needless to say, I did not make the brownies, and we have been eating macaroni and cheese, corn casserole, and roasted vegetables ever since. I wasn't quite sure whether to feel relieved or sorry that I hadn't made the brownies yet. I am very thankful that I had cooked a meal that we really like!

By Friday evening we were getting a little tired of this meal, and James was still craving soup. Per his request, I made another batch of the tortellini soup. As I said, it was a big hit. I also mixed up some desperation chili which gave a whole new spin to the mac and cheese. Normally, I would have asked some friends over to help us eat all that food, but company isn't really the best idea when part of your household is miserable and possibly still contagious. By dint of eating it for lunch and dinner pretty much every day, we've actually managed to polish off most of the Wednesday dinner. Whatever macaroni we don't finish today will go in the freezer. I think I accomplished my goal of going into Lent feeling really good about saying farewell to cheese, and I also think this is going to be a Cheesefare week to remember!

The Meeting of Our Lord

Today we commemorate the Presentation of Our Lord at the Temple in Jerusalem.  In the Gospel reading for the Feast, we hear the prayer prayed by St. Simeon upon receiving Him.

Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a light to enlighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel.

We learn from Holy Tradition that St. Simeon was one of the translators of the Septuagint, and St. Luke tells us that he was waiting to see Our Lord in person before dying (Luke 2:25-32). This puts him at 360 years old when he received Christ in the Temple. He recognized Him who is our Salvation, and prayed to God to depart this life. This prayer is said or sung daily at the conclusion of Vespers in the Orthodox Church, where we usually call it the Prayer or Song of St. Simeon. It is generally sung during Compline in the West, where it is known as the Nunc Dimittis, the first words of the prayer in Latin. Orthodox Christians also sing this hymn at the Churching of a child, which I think is a rather beautiful thing to do, since by seeing each tiny baby being presented in the Church as an icon of Christ being presented in the Temple, we are reminded that we are all called to be icons of Christ.

Because this hymn is sung so frequently, and probably also because it's such a beautiful prayer, there are many musical settings for it, both Eastern and Western. One evening with my husband's family as we sat around talking, somehow we ended up singing as many different versions as we knew, and we came up with about four or five, just from singing in churches over the years. Here a few different ones. You can find hundreds more recordings by searching YouTube for St. Simeon and Nunc Dimittis.   These are all in English; you can also find it in many other languages. For instance, the Rachmaninoff version is quite haunting.









I hope you enjoy them. Blessed Feast day to you!

The Dormition of the Theotokos

Blessed Feast to you! My husband and I married before we converted to the Orthodox Faith, and our wedding anniversary falls during Dormition fast, on August 9th. This year we are celebrating 7 years of marriage. On our fourth anniversary, my grandfather departed this life, so on that day we also remember him--Memory Eternal!  It happens that I was born on my grandparent's wedding anniversary, which I think forms an interesting circle. This morning during Divine Liturgy, I was struck by the Troparion of the Feast and how it similarly juxtaposes birth and death.

To non-Christians, and perhaps even to those Christians who do not celebrate the lives of the saints, it may seem odd that we would celebrate the departure from life of the Mother of God as a Great Feast. It may seem backward or callous that we celebrate someone on the day of their "death."  In secular life we celebrate birthdays, even for people we are remembering.  We honor the Presidents in February because two of our great Presidents, Washington and Lincoln had birthdays in this month. We honor Martin Luther King Jr. in January for his birthday, rather than in April when he was assassinated.  And we do celebrate births in the church, most notably of course, the birth of Christ, but also that of the Theotokos and St. John the Forerunner. In fact, we even commemorate the conception of these Saints. However, for most saints, the date of their repose is the primary date on which the they are honored.

When we celebrate the Saints' lives on the date when they departed from this life, we are celebrating their whole lives, here on Earth, and the Heavenly lives to which they depart. The Feast of the Dormition illustrates for us why this is so. When we refer to the Theotokos as the Mother of Life, as we do in the Troparion of the Feast, we refer to the fact that she gave birth to the One who is Life, and who conquered death.  The name of the Feast is another clue about why we celebrate the date that Saints depart from this life.  The word Dormition means "falling asleep."  When we refer to Christians as falling asleep or as departing this life, and to death as repose, we are not speaking euphemistically. We are not trying to soften death for the living or to avoid thinking of death.  We take this language from the Bible, and by speaking this way we are affirming that those who die in Christ do not die.

Like the Theotokos, when we depart this life, we do not forsake the world.  When Christians repose, we enter into the eternal Life of the Kingdom of Heaven, that same Life that we participate in during the Divine Liturgy. So while it is difficult and painful when our friends and family depart this life, at the same time we celebrate Christ's victory over death, knowing that because He is risen, so are our loved ones.  While they depart this life, they do not forsake us, and we ever ask them to intercede for us. Most Holy Theotokos, save us!

Christ is Risen! Χριστός ἀνέστη! !المسيح قام

I hope everyone has had a joyous Feast of Feasts. I had not intended for my spring break post to indicate that I was going to take a break from blogging for the rest of the fast, but I guess it served as such. Today I have caught up on all my blog reading. I really enjoyed looking at the many pictures of Holy Week and Paschal celebrations, but I don't have any to share myself, just a few photos around the house.

The last few weeks have been very full.  Efforts are being made locally to form an Orthodox school, and I had the opportunity to meet with one of the leaders of the steering committee about serving on the school board which is being formed. We had our annual staff appreciation dinner at the library where I work. The weekend of the fifth Sunday of Lent, we had a wonderful Lenten retreat at our church which is hosted jointly by the women of our parish as well as those of the local Greek parish.  This year Maria Khoury came and spoke to us of her experiences raising a family in the Holy Land, which was very inspiring. On the 25th of March after Holy Liturgy for the Annunciation, there was a fish dinner at church celebrating not only the feast, but also the 50th birthday of our parish priest. And of course, through it all there have been the Lenten church services.

And then, Holy Week: my favorite week of the year. I was telling a non-Orthodox co-worker about the services of Holy Week, and she commented, "It sounds like you could just pitch a tent in the church parking lot for the week." I believe that most of my readers are Orthodox Christians, but for any that are not, or for those curious about the schedule we follow in our Antiochian parish, here is the schedule for Holy Week this year. It gives a brief description of the various services.  Each one is unique and beautiful and a blessing to attend.

I find Bright Week a bit of a shock to the system, in more ways than one. Staying up most of the night on Pascha, eating all of the rich, (delicious!) festal foods, and then after being so immersed in the life of the Church for Lent and Holy Week, suddenly finding myself back to life as usual.  I take the day off of work on Bright Monday to ease myself back into it, but the big shift in the pattern of daily life tends to feel very abrupt to me. I do find it helps if I have some fun things and projects planned to fill the time I was spending in church: there is a garden to be planted, things to make, and books to read. Not to mention chores to be done, which have been severely neglected! I'm so impressed with those of you who do a Lenten spring clean. For this working wife Lent means work, church, sleep, repeat.  Food and food shopping find their way into that pattern sometimes, but cleaning, almost never. So I have plenty to do to help me adjust to the seasonal shift, and hopefully I'll be inspired to share a few of these projects here.

Blessed Paschal season to you all!

Sunday of Orthodoxy

 We venerate your most pure image, O Good One, and ask forgiveness of our transgressions, O Christ our God. Of Your goodwill, You were pleased to ascend the Cross in the flesh and deliver your people from bondage to the enemy. Therefore with thankfulness we cry aloud unto you: You have filled all with joy, O Savior, for You did come to save the world.

St. Valentine's Day

Blessed St. Valentine's Day to all. It seems that there are various stories about why this saint and this day came to be associated with romantic love.  In fact, as there are more than one saints named Valentine, it's not completely clear which of these saints is being commemorated. The Writer's Almanac on NPR today relates one story of a St. Valentine, who would secretly perform marriages, despite Emperor Claudius II forbidding men to marry in order to boost enrollment in the army. On being discovered, he was sentenced to beheading, so in addition to promoting marriage, as a martyr St. Valentine was a great witness for his love of God.

Regardless of how this day came to be observed, the gesture of expressing our love to those dear to us is a good one on any day. I usually make small token for my husband and leave it somewhere for him to find. Last year I used cutouts from the cardboard sleeves of some Charlie Brown DVDs that we had gotten at the library to decorate a few Valentines.

The first year we were married, I made these felt Valentines that I left scattered all over the place.

This year, I don't know if you could say I went in a really silly direction, or a really practical one. We have a few hand-knit dishcloths that I have made, and we both really prefer these to the store bought cloths, so I made this:

A heart-shaped dishcloth. It certainly made James laugh, but he's not quite sure if he should be irritated that I gave him cleaning supplies as a token of my love and affection. Although I have to admit, I do feel particularly loving toward him when he does the washing up.  :o)

Since today is also the last of Cheesefare, we are industriously applying ourselves to the remaining items of dairy in the house. We've managed to eat up most of the cheese, and we will likely have eggs and milkshakes for dinner. I ate this for an afternoon snack, which is sort of a Valentine in itself. It's Black Raspberry Chip from Graeter's, which I was thrilled to find is now available at a local grocery store chain here in Indianapolis.

It feels quite appropriate that St. Valentine's Day should fall on Forgiveness Sunday, as we endeavor to show love and humility to one another and to God, forgiving one another as we enter Great Lent.

I have had a gift of some extra free time today. This was the view outside the window a little while ago, and the snow continues. The library where I work closed early, so I got to come home at 12:30. I am not a great lover of snow, but I can appreciate its beauty as long as I don't have to go out in it. For one thing, I don't like going out in the cold and wet, but for another, going out in it spoils the illusion of the snow's pristine beauty. When we track through it we drag up the muck and dirt underneath it. Having celebrated Theophany this week, I've been thinking about the snow in an allegorical fashion. The whole world seems to be wrapped in a white baptismal garment, one actually made up of water itself. Although the garment is inevitably sullied, it will be cleansed and renewed with another snowfall or will melt away to bring forth new life in the spring, so it seems to be a beautiful illustration of the sanctification of the waters.

Now that Theophany is past, we will be putting away our Christmas decorations over the next few days, so I thought I'd post pictures of ours so I can enjoy them virtually once they're packed away, and to help me remember next year what I did. Below is our little pencil Christmas tree, that we bought when we were first married and living in a tiny apartment. It was perfect for us then, and is small enough to fit in our entry way now. The tree skirt is tulle leftover from wedding decorations.


Green is my favorite color. I have a green car, a green coat, green purses, plenty of green clothes, and this green wall in our dining area and kitchen. One of the things I love about the green wall is that it looks so cheery with the red Christmas decorations.

It's about 15 degrees outside right now, so I suspect that very soon the wood you see in this picture will be burning away in the fireplace. You can also see our Nativity set which is on top of the TV cabinet reflected in this mirror. My brother gave it to us as a Christmas gift the first year we were married, and the cave belonged to my mother-in-law, and might be older than I am.


And this is the first time in several years that we've had a real Christmas tree. Last year we were traveling for most of Christmas, so we didn't get one, and for the few years before that we were in an apartment. James surprised me by picking it up from a tree farm here in Indiana, and it's been lovely. We're going to be a little sad to take it down.


So one more time, to those of you celebrating Christmas today on the Old Calendar, "Christ is Born! Glorify Him!"

Christ is born! Glorify Him!

I hope everyone is enjoying Christmas as much as I am so far. After being in a bit of a winter funk this year, it has been wonderful to celebrate the joy of our Lord's incarnation and spend time with family. We are now smack dab in the middle of the twelve days of Christmas, and we are still firmly in the throws of celebration at our house. We have spent time with my family in Southern Indiana and Cincinnati and as well as a day with James' family in Ohio. Today his parents and sister will be arriving to spend several days.

I have been on vacation since Christmas Eve and don't go back to work till the 4th. It's lovely to have most of the Afterfeast of the Nativity off of work. I generally don't have as much time off and find it kind of sad to feel like the holiday is done well before Theophany. It's easy to feel a bit robbed of the feast when the radio stops playing Christmas music on the 26th, and all the Christmas decorations disappear by January 1st. (It must feel even more off kilter for those on the old calendar.) This year I'm looking forward to enjoying several more days of delicious holiday food, games, movies, hanging out with family and several more chances to attend Holy Liturgy in the next week.

Pascha is far and away my favorite holiday, but I love all the family time at Christmas. The Nativity of the Lord is also special at our house because we were Chrismated three years ago on December 23. It both seems like a lifetime ago and also just a blink of an eye. This year we were blessed to attend the Chrismations of some friends of ours the weekend before the Nativity, which was a beautiful reminder for us of our own Christmation. Blessed feast to everyone!

Farewell Summer

I'm a warm weather kind of girl, and I'm not too keen on winter. But I must admit, I enjoy living in a temperate climate with four distinct seasons. I like the changing of gears, the refocusing that occurs at during the seasonal shifts. We start to focus on new pursuits and eat different foods. I like being a little more aware of the passing of time.

That's one of the things I love about the liturgical cycle as well. It establishes a rhythm of life, daily, weekly, and seasonally. I like noting the shift of tones from one week to the next and singing the different Resurrectional troparia. The feasts of the Church mark the passing of the year. While the Nativity of the Theotokos on September 8 still falls firmly into summer to my mind, by the Exaltation of the Cross one week later on the 14th, I can't help but start to think of fall. St. Thekla is the patron of our ladies society, so this week our parish celebrated liturgy on Wednesday evening for the Feast of St. Thekla. On Wednesday evenings our parish has vespers, dinner, and Bible study. We usually take a short break from this during the summer, and this Wednesday also served as sort of a kickoff for the fall inquirer's class and adult Bible study. The Feast of St. Thekla on September 24, falling as it does so close to the autumnal equinox, has become one of the markers of autumn to me.


So we're saying goodbye to summer around here. We got the last box from our farm co-op last week, and we're savoring the last of the warm weather vegetables. We recently enjoyed this "snacky dinner" as we call it at out house. (It doesn't sound quite as sophisticated as calling it tapas or meze, but it tastes just as good.) Snacky dinner is very simple, and we both love it. It feels very relaxed. It involves setting out a variety of snack-like foods. For us, it almost always includes hard-boiled eggs. Often it means cheese and crackers, olives and fruit, and usually something dippable. It tends to be seasonal--in the winter there is often dried fruit and citrus. On this night it was sliced tomatoes with feta and basil, a very delectable local pear or two, and the usual hard-boiled eggs. The unappetizing looking grey stuff was the star of the show. That's baba ganoush. I had a lot of eggplants hanging around. Mmmm, it was yummy. It would have been lovely with some fresh pita, but even with the last of the bag of tortilla chips it was delicious. It was a really good way to say farewell to summer.

Fast Food Friday

If you are an Orthodox Christian, you know that we are currently observing the Apostles' Fast, so I thought this would be a good time to begin a series of posts on meals for fasting. I especially want to focus on meals that are quick and/or very easy to make, and I thought it would be appropriate to post these on Fridays. Since I had been a vegetarian for years before I was Orthodox, I think the discipline of fasting was an easier thing for me to incorporate into my life than it is for many converts. Having an array of vegan foods already in my cooking repertoire made it fairly easy to settle on meals for these days, and I thought I'd share some of our favorites.

Since I'm a vegetarian, I don't eat fish or shellfish whether during a fast or not. During fasting periods, basically I eat a vegan diet. If you're not Orthodox, fasting typically refers to refraining from all meat, dairy, eggs, and usually fish, wine and olive oil (some consider these to mean all alcohol and oils). Shellfish is permitted. Actual observance is personal, depends on one's one spiritual journey, and should be undertaken with consultation from one's priest. Fasting is accompanied with prayer, almsgiving and confession. I freely admit that the spiritual aspects of fasting pose a greater challenge for me than the physical discipline, but if I'm slack on the physical discipline, of course that makes the spiritual discipline that much harder. Being unprepared, busy, tired, sick, etc., can be a obstacle to observing the fast, so having some easy fall-back recipes is really useful. If you are a recent convert, you may not have built a list of reliable stand-bys, and if you're not, it can be nice to add new ones to the rotation.

I've noticed that popcorn for dinner is a popular concept around blog land. Some serve it with cocoa, some serve it with wine. At our house, it's popcorn and smoothies. Sorry about the blurry picture. We were in a hurry to move on to some Harry Potter and Scrabble. Popcorn and smoothies is one of our go-to meals when the meal plan falls through, we don't feel like cooking, we run short of time, we've gotten back from evening church services during Lent, or we just want something kind of easy and fun.

For most of my life my mom made popcorn at 9 pm as a bedtime snack. I grew up eating popcorn made on the stove top, so I don't really like the microwave kind, and in fact, we don't currently have a microwave. Stove top popcorn is very easy to do. I pour enough canola oil into a sauce pan to give the bottom a good coat, then I cover the bottom of the pan with a single layer of popcorn kernels. I put the lid on the pan, leave it vented, and turn the heat to medium high. After a few minutes the popcorn will start to pop. When the rapid fire popping dies down, I pour it into bowls. We salt it, and I like to add nutritional yeast. Mom never buttered the 9 o'clock popcorn, so to me there isn't anything missing, but of course you could add margarine (hopefully a non-hydrogenated one) if you really wanted. Or you could go the other direction and make this a totally oil-free meal with an air-popper.

We don't really have a smoothie recipe. Basically we toss whatever frozen fruit we're in the mood for into the blender, add enough juice to cover the fruit, and blend. This time I think we had mango, pineapple and strawberries. We meant to blend that with orange juice, but we didn't realize we had run out, so we used grape. Not our favorite smoothie ever, but still tasty. This simple meal is surprisingly satisfying, and it's very easy to always keep the ingredients on hand. I have a feeling it would go over well with kids, too. Watch for actual recipes on upcoming Fast Food Fridays.