Blessed Feast Day!

A very blessed Feast of Dormition to you all!!

Kontakion - Tone 2

Neither the tomb, nor death could hold the Theotokos,
Who is constant in prayer and our firm hope in her intercessions.
For being the Mother of Life,
She was translated to life by the One who dwelt in her virginal womb.

Troparion - Tone 1

In giving birth you preserved your virginity,
In falling asleep you did not forsake the world, O Theotokos.
You were translated to life, O Mother of Life,
And by your prayers, you deliver our souls from death.        




Blessed Feast of St. Herman!

ISN'T IT LOVELY when you have a productive day! Today on the eve of the Feast of St. Herman was one of those days. I'm finally getting things in order so we can begin our school year in week or so and just finishing up the final touches.

Today was baking day and while I bake each week, for some reason today my prosphora loaves just turned out nice. Maybe because I'm finally getting back into balance and things were more joyful and prayerful today. All the kids cooperated and we were able to get so much done! It felt good!

St. Herman is a special saint for our family so we always try to do something special. Usually we would make a pilgrimage to Port Townsend to the parish of St. Herman to celebrate the feast, and then enjoy the day at the beach. The services there are so lovely and then have a fabulous salmon lunch. If you can make it there it's well worth the drive. It's absolutely beautiful!! Unfortunately we won't make it this year.

If you haven't read the life of St. Herman, you really should take the time. He was a simple man and lived close to the earth. While he was a hermit, he helped all those he came in contact with and lived a quiet, gentle life. I have been told that if you are able to visit the church of St. Herman on Spruce Island in Kodiak, Alaska you can strongly feel his presence. I would love to make a pilgrimage there and experience it!

There is a wonderful children's book my children love about St. Herman called North Star: St. Herman of Alaska.The illustrations are beautiful and it's such a lovely story to share.

So on this glorious feast of St. Herman I leave you with his troparions and kontakion. God bless your day!

Troparion - Tone 7

Joyful North Star of the Church of Christ,
Guiding all people to the Heavenly Heavenly Kingdom;
Teacher and apostle of the True Faith;
Intercessor and defender of the oppressed;
Adornment of the Orthodox adornment of the Orthodox Church in America:
Blessed Father Herman of Alaska,
Pray to our Lord Jesus Christ
For the salvation of our souls!

Troparion - Tone 4

O blessed Father Herman of Alaska,
North star of Christ's holy Church,
The light of your holy life and great deeds
Guides those who follow the Orthodox way.
Together we lift high the Holy Cross
You planted firmly in America.
Let all behold and glorify Jesus Christ,
Singing his holy Resurrection.

Kontakion - Tone 3

The eternal light of Christ our Savior
guided you, blessed Father Herman,
on your evangelical your evangelical journey to America
to proclaim the Gospel of peace.
Now you stand before the throne of glory;
intercede for your land and its people:
Peace for the world and salvation for our souls!

Summery Fasting Meal...

IN THE KITCHEN TODAY we made a wonderful couscous salad. Sometimes during the fast it's easy to get in a rut of soup and bread. I know some folks that eat pb & j all during the fast, but I'm sorry I just can't do that. During the cooler weather soup is my easy go to dinner, but during the summer on a hot day, who wants to each HOT soup?? Not me!

So the other day when I was at Costco I noticed that they now carry the Israeli Couscous. If you're not familiar with couscous it comes in two difference forms. Normal couscous is semolina that is sprinkled with water and rolled to form small pellets. It is then sprinkled with dry flour to keep them separate, and then sieved. Pellets which are too small to be finished granules of couscous and fall through the sieve will be again rolled and sprinkled with dry semolina and rolled into pellets. This process continues until all the semolina has been formed into tiny granules of couscous. Israeli couscous on the other hand is an Israeli toasted pasta shaped like rice or little balls. It is much larger and has a softer texture. Both varieties cook up fast (about 20 minutes) and are a great substitute for rice.

The product that Costco now carries is a blend of mainly Israeli couscous, but also includes some lentils and orzo. It makes a really nice hardy salad for a hot day!

First I made one batch of couscous, following the directions on the package. Then as that cooled I chopped up veggies, added some sun dried tomatoes, kalamata olives and about two teaspoons of dried basil. Since we are not "strictly" following the fast I did also add a bit of feta cheese, but you could certainly leave that out. Then just toss and serve. I didn't really think it needed a "dressing", but if you wanted you could make up a dressing of lemon juice, a dash of vinegar and veggie or coconut oil and I'm sure it would be great too!

Some lovely pita bread, homemade hummus and fresh cantaloupe rounded out our meal! It turned out really well and everyone just gobbled it down. Let me know if you give it a try.

A blessed feast of  the 7 Holy Youths "Seven Sleepers" of Ephesus!

Troparion - Tone 4  Your holy martyrs, O Lord, Through their sufferings have received their incorruptible crowns from You, our God. For having Your strength, they laid low their adversaries, And shattered the powerless boldness of demons. Through their intercessions, save our souls! Kontakion - Tone 4 Those who renounced the perishing comforts of this world, Preferring the eternal things of Heaven, Were incorrupt after death and rose from the the dead And buried the snares of devils! O Faithful, let us then honor them, singing a hymn of praise to Christ!

Thoughts for August...

I CAN'T BELIEVE it will be August this week! I don't know where summer has gone. Wednesday begins another fasting period. In some ways I look forward to these fasting periods during the year. It gives me a time to refocus and slow down a bit. Often times there are more services, our meals are a bit more simple and we are forced to slow down and redirect our attentions.

August also gets me thinking autumn is just around the corner, school plans to finalize, up coming birthdays and names days to plan. Autumn is one of my most favorite times of year. I love the weather, the inspirations for crafts, decorating... on and on it goes. It also gets me thinking of knitting projects. I know I've been doing lots of quilting, but I need to begin my knitting or the kiddos will freezing this winter.

I've been getting out my needles now and again and now the kids are getting in on the act. The kiddos have Knitting Towers to learn. They love making their long "snakes" of yarn (simular to i-cords) with their towers. Soon we'll have snakes throughout the house!!

I'm in the process of finishing up a hat before I get started on some winter jumpers for the boys. Because of a mix up with an order earlier in the year I have a bunch of skeins on lovely grey merino wool. I think I'm going to get a skein each of their favorite color so I can do some color work so they can be a bit different. I also have some lovely wool to make a cozy cardy for my little bit. I also found some adorable mushroom buttons for her sweater. But I'll share the photos of those when I begin that project.

As for now we just need to finish up with our visiting family and begin to finalize the structure of our upcoming shift in cycle. I also need to think about the new year. The "new year" you ask? Well, the beginning of the new Church year is September 1st. We usually have a blessing service at church and then we sit down as a family and talk about what we would like to work on during this new year to help our relationship with our Lord. Our new years "resolutions" so to speak. Each year as our children grow older they take on more of living their faith with the rest of us. For example in our family our children don't completely partake in the fasts until they receive their first confession. Then as they grow they work on it each year until they can keep the fasts more completely. This year my 7 year old will begin to serve on the altar with his older brother, which is very exciting. The new year is just a time to examine our walk with the Lord and what we can do better. We really do this before each fast as well, but we make a bigger deal about it for the "New Year".

So as we prepare for the Dormition of Our Lady, we can also be looking for her Nativity in the new year! Hope you are enjoying your summer! Have a lovely day!

Synaxis of the Archangel Gabriel

TODAY IS THE Feast of the Archangel Gabriel! Gabriel is one of my favorites. Keeping the feasts outside of the school year is some times more tricky, I must admit. One of the things I really appreciate about the school year is the structure it provides to my day. However there are important feasts during the summer that need to be celebrated and observed! For me today is one of them.

As we approach August there are so many wonderful feasts to participate in! The first of the month we begin the Dormition Fast that ends in the celebration of the most Blessed Theotokos! I especially love to decorate with all the lovely flowers that are in bloom. I also have a wonderful bread stamp and I bake a yummy sweet bread in celebration of her feast! But that's for another post.

During the fast we have the wonderful feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord (Aug 6) and the blessing of the fruit. I love taking my kids shopping for the tasty fruit for our basket and then taking it to church to have it blessed. Another special feast for our family is the Feast of St. Herman (Aug 9). He is a very special saint in our family and we try to make it up to Port Townsend, WA to the parish of St. Herman to take part in their celebration. They have a wonderful Liturgy and then a lovely salmon feast out on the lawn. Then we spend the day at the beach and wondering through the fun shops of Port Townsend. I look forward to it each year!

How do you keep the feast of the year? What are your traditions? I'd love for you to share what your family does with me through the comments! I read them all and try to respond to each one.

Troparion - Tone 4

Gabriel, commander of the heavenly hosts,
we who are unworthy beseech you,
by your prayers encompass us beneath the wings of your immaterial glory,
and faithfully faithfully preserve us who fall down and cry to you:
"Deliver us from all harm, for you are the commander of the powers on high!"

Kontakion - Tone 2

You look upon God's glory in heaven,
and bring grace from on high to earth,
wise Gabriel, leader of angels,
minister of God's glory, and divine defender of the world!
Save and preserve those who cry to you:
"Be our defense, so that no one can be against us!"

A blessed Feast of the Synaxis of the Archangel Gabriel and blessed names day to all those Gabriels out there! Have a wonderful weekend!!

Feast of Sts. Peter & Paul...

Troparion - Tone 4 First-enthroned of the apostles, teachers of the universe: Entreat the Master of all to grant peace to the world, and to our souls great mercy! All night vigil. St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, Tacoma, WA Kontakion - Tone 2 Today Christ the Rock glorifies with highest honor The rock of Faith and leader of the Apostles, Together with Paul and the company of the twelve, Whose memory we celebrate with eagerness of faith, Giving glory to the one who gave glory to them! Blessed Feast Day to you all!

Praying...

I am sharing this from http://www.morningoffering.blogspot.com/ Abbot Tryphon is the Abbot of All-Mericful Saviour Orthodox men's monastery on Vashon Island in Washington State. It was just what I needed to read today. Sometimes as a mom, prayer times are chaotic at best. While I have my own prayer time, there are times I feel just to tired to be motivated. This was a wonderful post to read! I hope it blesses your day. 

PRAYING
When Prayer Becomes Dry

When we find ourselves struggling with prayer, and feel that it has become dry and lifeless, we are sometimes tempted to stop praying. When our prayer has become a struggle, it is good to remember that God knows our needs, and even knows what we want to say when we don't seem to know. This is the time we need to just pray without worrying about it. When we find we... can't keep our minds focused on the formal morning and evening prayers, as found in our prayer book, it is perfectly acceptable to simply light our lampada (hanging oil lamp), sit quietly before our icons, and let silence be our voice.

God wants to enter into our heart, and requires only our permission and cooperation. This relationship does not require an emotional response, for, like all relationships, we are not always open to an emotional response. Being real with God is far more important than being emotional, since emotions can be contrived and fleshly. As in all relationships, there are times when we do feel moved by emotions, but the lack of such feelings in no way represents a lack of love for God, because God cares for us, and God knows we love him, even when suffering in those dry time.

With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

Another Fast Begins...

AND SO TOMORROW BEGINS the Apostles Fast. I have to say that I really find comfort in the fasting periods of the year. They are reminder to me to refocus and get back on track in my relationship with Christ. Even through we do keep our morning and evening prayer times, it is easy to get so busy that you are just going through the motions to get it done. One of the many things that I'm grateful for my children for is keeping me on track. They have become accustom to the rhythm of our "domestic church" and so even if I'm feeling rushed or that we have to push on to get going, they are the reminder to take a breath and do what's important. Daily prayer to me, is like the warm up the symphony does before a great performance. If I don't get prayer time in, our day doesn't go nearly as well. For me fasting times are a time to slow down. To spend more time at the foot of our Lord. Reading His Word and meditating on His Mysteries.

To try to instill all the gifts the Church offers us in our children can be a challenge. It all begins with me or rather my husband and I. There are times it's hard to be a "good" example. It is far to easy to miss Vespers or to skip prayer times. To allow the 'under tow' of life to pull us out into a sea of chaos and lose the rhythm that the Church provides for our benefit. It is the podvig, the struggle we carry through our days. As I've shared before in previous posts, it's important to me that my children celebrate ALL the feasts of the Church; Not just Christ's birth and resurrection. In keeping all the feasts, however we need the preparation, which is what the fasts provide.

So over the next few weeks I will be sharing some snippets of our journey through this fast. I hope you'll join me and share your thoughts. Enjoy your day!

Spirit Monday...

THE HOUSE IS now quiet... and I can now organize my thoughts. Doing this blog thing does take a lot of time, but I'm enjoying it. However, trying to do it with the buzz of children during the day seems not to work for me. I can only keep so many conversations going at a time. Three chatty boys and trying to chat with you, well you should get the picture. But now the house is quiet... How I love the quiet! There are days that I think that if someone could just lock me in solitary confinement in a room full of yarn or fabric, some knitting needles or a sewing machine, that as long as I had a bathroom and meals I could be happy for a long, long time. Ha! Ha!

Today is the beginning of Spirit Week. After each Great Feast of the Church we celebrate the one that made the feast possible. So today, being Spirit Monday, we honor the all Holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, Who descended upon the Apostles at Pentecost. This was the fulfillment of our Lord's promise to send the Comforter to His disciples (John 14:16). At the services of Pentecost we return to singing

"O Heavenly King, the Comforter the Spirit of truth,

who art every where present and fillest all things,

treasury of blessings and giver of life, come and abide in us,

and cleanse us from every impurity

and save our souls O good One."



I especially love this prayer and it is such a comfort to hear it again during our services. It's one of the first prayers I teach my children to sing. I love to hear their little voices singing it during our evening prayers. Don't you just love to hear children sing. It's so sweet. Why is it that adults singing off tune doesn't sound nearly as sweet? Hmmmm....

Anyway, all in our home especially love Spirit Week! A whole week with NO fasting!! For those of you non-Orthodox reading, we fast each Wednesday and Friday during the year. Except during fasting periods, where we fast everyday for a period of time. So fast free weeks are very special to us. I hope to make some fun and more special than usual non-fasting meals on Wednesday and Friday this week to share with you. So stay tuned.

To celebrate the Feast of Pentecost Sunday we were able to get out and just enjoy the day. We had a lovely walk and then a nice meal afterwards. Even though it wasn't a particularly sunny day, it was warm and nice to just get out and admire God's creation.

Don't you just love buttercups...

My kids thought that this was the "X" tree, must be treasure close by...

Now I'm back to planning the week ahead... I hope you have a wonderful day and I hope your are able to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit visit upon you today and everyday!

Pentecost...

THIS IS THE WEEKEND of Pentecost... What a glorious feast of the church! One of the ways I help to make this feast more significant to the children is to put the emphasis of celebrating the "birthday" of the church. We make a cake and talk about the Gospel reading for the day. Years ago when my oldest was six or seven a group of ladies and children from our church decided to make a special plate for the feasts of the church. I'm sorry to say the only two I completed were the "Liturgical year" and Pentecost. However, I now can not find the one made for Pentecost.

The Liturgical Year plate shows in colors and symbols all of the seasons of the church year. It's a wonderful visual to show the fasting and celebration seasons of the year. I should find a ceramic shop and make the other feast day plates so I could have a special plate for each feast. Hmmmm... have to think about that. Anyway when we make our "Pentecost Birthday" cake we use this special plate for the feast. We also go out and find greenery and flowers to decorate to signify "that God’s divine Breath comes to renew all creation as the “lifeÄcreating Spirit.”  Just another way to make the feast more meaningful for the children.

So after the wonderful services of Pentecost Sunday the children will help to prepare our special meal with a special dessert, usually a cake. What's a birthday without a cake, right? Then on Spirit Monday, the following day, we would usually travel to our historical Holy Trinity Church for Spirit Monday to continue the celebration of the feast. This year, however we will be home, due to a lacking of transportation. There's a lovely picnic lunch afterwards and another day of celebration. I'm sad to be missing it.

On this weekend of Pentecost I wish you a blessed feast and pray that we all honor the visitation of the Holy Spirit upon us throughout the year.

Blessed art Thou, O Christ our God, who hast revealed the fishermen as most wise

by sending down upon them the Holy Spirit:

through them Thou didst draw the world into Thy net.

O Lover of Man, Glory to Thee (Troparion).

When the Most High came down and confused the tongues, he divided the nations.

But when he distributed the tongues of fire, he called all to unity.

Therefore, with one voice, we glorify the All-Holy Spirit! (Kontakion)



Celebrating Name Days...

TODAY WAS THE names day of my little boy. Often times my non-Orthodox friends ask me, "What is a 'names' day? Why do you have them? Well the short answer is, as an Orthodox Christian we have a saint's name that we use at church. For those of us who are blessed to have our children baptized into the church at birth we name our children after saints that we admire in the church. So often times their name and church name are one in the same. As for my family we chose our children's saint's names based on when they were due in the church calendar. I like having my children's names days near their actual birthdays. But since one never knows when a baby will arrive, my son's names day and birthday are more than a month apart.

In our family on someone's names day we read about the saint, sing (as best we can) the troparion for the day, attend a service if there is one and then try to make the day special and fun. Often times the children get a small gift and they always choose a special treat to be served that day. Today was all about chocolate chip cookies. We all enjoyed them! I do so much baking regularly I have gotten out of the habit of baking treats, so it was a blessing that they were requested today.

The helpers...

Adding the chips...

Ready to go into the oven...

mmmm..... don't they look like cookie perfection!

Lovely FULL cookie jar and a cup of tea! I had to take a picture, since I know it won't be that way for long.

Enjoy your day!

Almost a Month...

IT'S BEEN ALMOST A MONTH... since I started this Blog venture and I think it's going fairly well. I'm hoping for this to be a place that I can share my Orthodox Homeschooling journey and that by sharing those of you reading this will take away some encouragement, support and learn something you didn't know. I would love to hear your comments about what things are useful. I would also be honored if you feel anything I blog about is worth passing on.

Now that we are on the verge of summer, I'm thinking most of my posts will be more about playing, crafting, cooking and trying to get back into the liturgical rhythm. While I do, do some schooling with the littler kids, it's more unstructured learning. I will also be sharing other blogs and information that I come across that strikes my fancy.

Hope you had a wonderful long weekend. I had so many plans for things to do, but at least I finished my first sweater!! I am extremely proud of it.

We had lots of playing in, mostly, sun this long weekend. And I took a walk around our yard and was able to put this wonderful bouquet of flowers together. It just makes me smile every time I look at it. God Bless your Day!!

Feast Days...

YESTERDAY WAS THE glorious Feast of the Ascension of our Lord! While we weren't able to do all that I would have liked it was a lovely feast. Feast days are such an important aspect of living the domestic church. When my oldest was young our whole education schedule was wrapped around the liturgical year. Feast days were days off and we always attended Vespers and Liturgy. At the time we belonged to a mission and my hubby was the only Reader for a time so we attended everything. My son always looked forward to the feasts of the church, mostly because he had the day off school I'm sure, but at least that's something.

It's important to me to have my children celebrate the feasts of the church. It's how we follow the life of Christ and honor his visitation on humanity. It never made sense to me that most people only celebrate Christ's birth and resurrection. What about what happened in between? I want my children to know and celebrate all the feast of the church. I'm slowly, very slowly working my way back to the rhythm of the liturgical year. What I was able to do with one I find more challenging to do with three. I say three because my oldest gets up and makes it to church on his own. We are blessed to live on the church property, so we can just walk down the hill.

Even though we were not able to make it to services for this feast this year we did observe the feast at home. For each of the 12 Great Feasts of the Church I always read about the feast, the children color the icon, we do an activity and often times I have something in the kitchen that we make. I also try to teach them the troparion for the feast. The problem here is that I'm still not great at all the tones without the aid of the choir. So we solider on and do our best.

All these things are wonderful tools to help teach about Christ, his visitation and why and how we, as mere humans can become more like Him. I think if you want to keep Christ in Christmas then we need to keep all His feasts and through these experiences we are more able to attempt to reflect his humanity and experience true joy that only He can bring.

Troparion - Tone 4
O Christ God, You have ascended in Glory,
Granting joy to Your disciples by the promise of the Holy Spirit.
Through the blessing they were assured
That You are the Son of God,
The Redeemer of the world!
 

A Week of Blessings...

Today is Friday and I don't know where the week has gone. So many things going on, so many people in my life needing prayers. Some times it all goes by in a blur!

This week my oldest and my hubby came home from St. Louis and the FRC World Championship! It was quite an experience for both of them. There were teams from so many countries as well as from around the nation! I am so grateful that they were able to go and be apart of such an event! I can remember sitting and watching a program called Robot Wars on TV when my oldest was 4 and 5 years old and him saying "one day I'm going to build robots like that, wouldn't that be cool mom?" I can remember thinking how on earth am I going to help him with that! That is so far outside of my knowledge and comfort zone I can't imagine how I can make this work for him. But homeschooling mom's are "DOERS", they make things happen. I spoke with many moms that gave me hope and encouragement that we could indeed find things to feed this interest. Through lots of prayer and research we found curriculum and groups to help us accomplish our goals. And now believe or not he's doing just what he said, building robots! I think my hubby and I had hoped he would be athletic and active in things we had participated in growing up. Things we were more familiar and comfortable with. But leave it to our son to help build a robot that plays basketball instead of playing himself.

I have been so blessed to share this journey with this boy and I am so proud of the young man he's growing into.

So this week on one hand I've had this exciting experience to be a part of and on the other I have been following a fellow parishioner's journey with their "micro preemie" born at 22 weeks and 6 days. It just makes me treasure all the more, all the time I've been blessed with, with my children. There are days we have successes, days we have failures, days that we wish we could fast forward through, but each day is such a blessing. Such a chance to capture a moment to tuck away for later. We all grow through all that we do and we don't have to do it alone. We have friends, family, a community to help us and build us up. We have a faithful God, if we trust in Him. I just seem to take for granted the moments, the challenges, but when I look back at the journey I am so humbled by all the blessings we've received...

As we enter this weekend of the Paralytic, I pray

Kontakion - Tone 3 By Your divine intercession, O Lord, as You raised up the paralytic of old, so raise up my soul, paralyzed by sins and thoughtless acts; so that being saved I may sing to You: “Glory to Your power, O compassionate Christ!” Let me not be "paralyzed" by my sin, but let me present to all those around me in all the moments and challenges of daily life and I rejoice in all the blessings and successes we receive!