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Showing posts from March, 2014

Great Lent: My Favorite Liturgical Season

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Today is the the last day of the fourth full week of Lent.  In the Orthodox church Great Lent is 40 days.  It begins on a Monday and ends on the Friday before Palm Sunday. This is slightly different  from the Western Calendar observance of Lent. I love Great Lent. This is a [supposedly] quiet time of reflection: an opportunity for reconnecting to our faith and growing spiritually. It’s the time of preparation. We remember creation and the fall.  We remember our great need for a Savior.  During Lent we fast from certain foods but even more importantly we fast from sin and strive to discipline our flesh. We spend more time in prayer, more time at church, and hopefully, more time loving God and loving others.   In practical terms, my family strives for less outside activities, more family prayer, and less screen time. We choose not to watch certain favorite videos and instead pick more educational, documentary style shows.  We don’t always keep to the standards. Some days I feel like

Random 5 ~ March 28th Edition

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This is it!  The last Random 5 (*cough* *cough* Saturday) on Friday for March!  Nearly 3 months gone already of 2014.  Time just starts flying by faster and faster every day! I’m going to start with a Random Picture that I just love.   1. This past week (March 25) was the Annunciation .  When I was growing up (catholic), it was a big deal in the Church but yet not.  I mean it was just not a big deal for me or my family.  It’s a big deal for us now and I have a much better understanding of why we celebrate this feast.  (Or why we should.  I don’t think my family does a very good job but my church always has a liturgy service and a fish dinner.)  Sure it’s a feast about Mary.  But it isn’t really so much about Mary as it is about Christ.  This is the  day the church celebrates Gabriel’s announcement that Mary is to bear a Child who will “save His people from their sins.”  This feast celebrates the conception of Christ by the Holy Spirit. God became flesh through Mary.  For many years

Remembering Disney World ~ Think Back Thursday

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I haven’t done any kind of think back (or throw back if you prefer) Thursday kind of post in months, perhaps over a year!  But I was trying to find something on one of the thumb drives and I found our Disney pictures from November of 2008. Supergirl has a life threatening heart condition.  (Life threatening does not mean terminal.  Many people think that wishes are granted only to children with terminal illnesses.  This is not true.) In April of 2008, Supergirl’s cardiologist recommended her for the Make-A-Wish program.  She wished to go to Disney World (yes that’s the one in Florida!) and meet Buzz Lightyear. It was a memorable trip and she still talks about it!  It’s also been wonderful for me to look back at these pictures and see how much this tiny little thing has grown. So here’s a a few of pictures from that memory making family vacation. Our Make-A-Wish trip to Orlando, Florida included 1 free day pass to SeaWorld in addition to our Park Hopper Passes to Disney World.

Random 5 {March 21st Edition}

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Thursday was the first day of spring so I’m tempted to call this the 1st Day of Spring Edition.  Been a busy busy week here! 1.  Tuesday Honeybear and I made an unplanned trip to Urgent Care.  He’s fine.  But it was a good thing we went.  His finger had been sore and bothering him and was clearly infected.  It’s gross so I didn’t take any pictures.  Trust me, infected fingers are not pretty.  Honeybear and his finger are doing much better now.  Finger is looking much better as the antibiotics do their job. 2.  On Wednesday I made a Vegetable “Beef” Soup.  I wanted it to be lower in carbs so I used the trick of using radishes instead of potatoes.  Carrots, onion, celery, mushrooms, radishes, turnips, rutabaga, diced tomatoes, and cabbage in a vegetable broth. The girls really liked it.  The radishes really do make a great substitute for potatoes but they they awhile to  cook.  I think I should write a blog post about using radishes as potatoes.  What do you think?  Would you be intere

Exploring Many Languages with Mango Homeschool Edition {Crew Review}

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When I was in high school I took both German and French. In my home school, my daughters have explored Greek and are studying Latin. I’ve always wanted to learn Hebrew; Supergirl has a “thing” for Spanish and Honeybear? He’s been wanting to study Greek and Hebrew and refresh his German. Thanks to the Schoolhouse Review Crew and Mango Languages , in addition to the above languages the girls can explore over 60 languages including: Russian, Irish and Scottish Gaelic. They can even learn Pirate. Five us us have been able to use Mango Homeschool Edition . Mango Homeschool Edition: Mango Passport: The actual language study lessons, quizzes and tests are accessed through Mango Passport. Mango Passport ( i.e. Mango Passport Russian, Mango Passport German) is the heart of the program. This is where students learn the language through online lessons . Mango Passport includes chapter quizzes and unit tests. (Note: Currently there is no way to track progress or see which questions a

Random 5 {March 14th Edition}

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Some weeks it is very easy for me to come up with 5 Random thoughts.  I do try to pick out things relevant to the past week but this week I decided to let  some of my thoughts be dictated by some photos from earlier this year. 1.  I think we’re getting used to the stranger who seemed to replace my husband.  We’ve adjusted enough to seeing him with contacts that we were all a little thrown when he chose to wear glasses for an evening. 2.  We missed all the pre-sanctified liturgies from this week.  At least we made both of them last week. I love Lent. (You’ll want to come back tomorrow to read about how Lent is my favorite liturgical season!) 3.  Lacey the cat is undaunted by a mere computer in the lap of her favorite human. Lacey is Turtlegirl’s constant school companion. Though I do not have any pictures to share, Lacey’s brother, George the Cat, loves read aloud time. If you are reading aloud he will come out and make himself comfortable, usually on the lap of the reader, and liste

When You Fast . . . Recipes for Lenten Seasons {Favorite Anything Series}

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This is my 5th Lent as an Orthodox Christian. Lent for the Orthodox is, well, it’s different .  It’s not about giving up something in order to experience the suffering of Christ.  It’s about preparing ourselves for the greatest feast of the liturgical year: Pascha.  Pascha is the foundation of the Christian faith.  “ And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty ” (1 Cor 15: 14, Orthodox Study Bible). During Great Lent we seek to deepen our spiritual life.  We fast, not just from certain foods, but also from sin.  We are to increase our alms giving and our prayers. I love the season of Lent because I am reminded of how great is the love of God and how vast my need for Him. I am not a vegetarian by choice.  I would rather not eat a vegan diet if I have any alternatives, but . . . but . . . Lent!  So we fast. (The strictest of fasting rules are intended for monastics. Lay persons should fast following the advice of his/her priest.) I have several

Random Five on Friday {March 7th Edition}

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It’s Friday again!  I love this meme.  I get to pick five random things to chat about with my readers! 1.  Today is my sister’s birthday.  As usual I have forgotten to mail a card.  I am *lousy* with things like cards and letters.  I doesn’t mean I don’t love my friends and family it just means I do a lousy job of keeping track of cards and dates. 2.  Great Lent started this week.  We made it to liturgy on Wednesday night and we’re planning to make it tonight.  I love the Friday night pre-sanctified liturgies because they are followed by “Soup Supper and Talk”.  Every year Father gives a mini-class and they have always been so interesting! 3.  Cucumbers make a great scoop for pico de gallo.  I wanted chips and salsa but I needed to not eat too many chips. The cucumbers taste better with pico de gallo than with ranch.  Just saying. 4.  I published my first review for the 2014 Review Crew this week.  It’s a chore planner by Motivated Moms.  You need to check it out! 5.  Honeybear d

Reading for myself! {R is for Reading}

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I have lots of organizing and re-arranging and regrouping type topics on my brain but couldn’t quite find an R topic that worked for me to use for Alphabet Blogging .  I asked Turtlegirl for some suggested R words. Without hesitation she said “reading.”  Hmm. Yup. That works for me. At the beginning of 2013 I decided that I wanted to read more books.  Let me clarify, more books that I wanted to read . When the girls were younger, I read a lot of books. I read great books aloud to the girls and for awhile I pre-read readers to hand to the girls and I read history books aloud and science books too. So in 2013, according to Goodreads, I read a total of 22 books. That number seems so tiny. So many books in the world that I want to read and I only managed to read 22? But it’s a start, right? 22 books is better than no books.  And those were 22 books that I choose to read for me . So moving on to 2014.  I decided to set the goal for 40 books. That’s nearly double what I read in 2013. I re

A Planner for Mom: Motivated Moms {Crew Review}

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As we entered a new calendar year, my thoughts once again turned to “how can I stay on top of all the things I need to do especially the cleaning!”.  I caught the declutter-organize-and-this-time-we’re-going-to-keep-it-up bug.  Fortunately, Motivated Moms was one of the first vendors of the 2014 Crew Year and crew members could choose between a Motivated Moms Ebook planner or Motivated Moms iOS App (with full year server access) .  Since I don’t have an i-anything, I gladly choose the 2014 Motivated Moms Printable Chore Planner {Black and White} Ebook. What is Motivated Moms? In the simplest of terms Motivated Moms is a chore schedule. Two friends who met online, collaborated together over time to create this detailed chore schedule to help moms have a clean and organized home.  It’s been around for years. The About Page doesn’t list when Motivated Moms started offering the planner but it does list history as far back as 2005! It’s been around for even longer than I thought! Tod

My Favorite Cheesecake Recipe {Favorite Anything Series}

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Today, around the world Orthodox Christians, whether they follow the “old” or the “new” calendar, celebrate Cheesefare Sunday.  It is often referred to as “Cheesecake Sunday”.   Today is also known as Forgiveness Sunday. We joke that it is Cheesecake Sunday.  Our first Forgiveness Sunday potluck was nearly all cheesecake! So for cheesecake cheesefare Sunday BooBear did the work and I did the translating but together we took our  favorite super easy 8 Minute Cheesecake Recipe and turned it into a chocolate feast! Also we did not use cool whip.  Instead I taught BooBear how to whip heavy cream using our Bosch mixer and we used real whipped cream. The Super Easy 8 Minute Cheesecake is not a true cheesecake and it is not baked.  It’s one of those no-bake and is very similar to the Jell-O Box No Bake Cheesecake only a million times better!  We hadn’t tried chocolate before though it’s been on our list of “we should try that” for ages.  We used unsweetened coco powder which we added w

A Random Five {Yes, on Saturday!}

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Not only am I doing this on a Saturday instead of a Friday but it’s getting to be late on a Saturday.  1.  Today is the first of March.  March.  Already?  I am fairly certain the countdown has begun for my daughter.  Her birthday is in 19 days. 2.  When person who is about the size of a 6-7 year old with a mental capacity around that same age puts her little hands on her hips, stomps her foot, declares that she doesn’t belong in the family and that she is NOT the drama queen, it’s impossible to not laugh. Nope she’s not the drama queen.  Me thinks she doesn’t yet understand what the title means. 3.  The same little person has reached a stage of development that she wants to be “just like mama.”   Giggling, with an ear to ear grin, she states:  “I can’t go potty, Mama.  Just like you.”  Um, I had a bladder infection.  She just thought it would be fun to pretend so that she could be like mom.  Another example?  She had to wrap her towel around her the way *I* wrap the towel around me