Pascha Prep Has Begun! & Happy Birthday, Toby!

Pascha prep has begun here! It has been a LLLLOOOONNGGG Lent! Am I right? The Lentiest of Lents. We are all more than ready for the celebrations of Pascha and Toby's birthday tomorrow. This year our Pascha celebration will include Toby's birthday which is actually Holy Saturday - today! Happy Birthday to my beloved! Like our anniversary, his birthday is often during Lent when we are supposed to be fasting. We do our best and often accommodate; but not during the Triduum (the Catholic term for Holy Thursday, Friday, and Saturday; I'm not sure if the Orthodox have a term for it). 

Toby requested a carrot cake which I am more than eager to fulfill. I've made one for him a time or two before, but I recall having some trouble with one recipe in particular. This year, I'm using a recipe that I can't recall if I've used before, but is from the most trusted gluten free cookbook I have. I baked the three layers today while Toby was at church streaming Vesperal Divine Liturgy. I had that going constantly and at times the music brought me to tears...I have so missed church! (Yes, Father would prefer that we were standing in front of our TVs in the position of prayer as we would at church, but I had too much to do today to make that happen. With Toby at church every day this week - and sometimes more than once a day - I've been holding down the fort alone. He is such a help and doing double duty along with the Pascha prep and my workload and homeschooling, I have had to make every minute count lest I forgo sleep.) Anyway, I baked the cake and then wrapped and stored the layers in the fridge to assemble and decorate Sunday morning.

Sunday will be quite a celebration for us. And, since our Pascha service starts at midnight, we are less than six hours until the services begin! Yes, it will be from home and we will not be able to attend services - except for Toby who is live-streaming nearly all of them for our parish - but we will do our very best to have a great one here. As I mentioned early on in this lockdown, I think it's more important than ever to keep a sense of normalcy - but even where we can - make things more special than ever. Put more effort into things. 

I've had so much I wanted to write about - and I've taken many sets of pics I wanted to post during our walks - but I've been quiet on the blog lately because my work really picked up this month and certain aspects of life seem to just take more out of us (like shopping, my goodness!) Regarding my workload, I am not complaining for one moment! I am exceptionally grateful! We have a growing list of people we know or are acquainted with who have lost their jobs - either permanently or temporarily - or have had their hours or pay cut. These are hard times. They are going to get harder. None of us are really immune to the effects of this. But those of us who can, are going to have to chip in where we can to help others - with our time, talent, money, and constant prayers. With all that's been going on, it's been a while since I was able to take a breather, be more domestic, and even blog a bit.

My return to domesticity began Wednesday night. I cleaned the house - a deep clean; a spring cleaning which I've been wanting to do for a while now but just have not been able to. It feels so good when that's done. My allergies will thank me eventually - right now they're still rebelling from the dust assault and now a new cold front which brought with it more pollen along with the cooler temps.

Thursday I finished the last of our shopping for Pascha. This year, I remembered to buy as much as I could before Western Easter since some things would not be in stores this week. But some things have to be purchased just before - like tulips! Every year I look forward to spring tulips, which sometimes show up in January. But I do not let myself buy them until just before Easter - and now - Pascha. Last year, I almost couldn't find any, but did at the last minute, thankfully.

This year, I scored a ton of very fresh ones at our local Tom Thumb, which very smartly had them in the refrigerated section of the floral department. They wouldn't fit in my refrigerator but I put ice cubes in the containers they were in. I was told that would keep them from opening up too early. That didn't really work as well as I'd hoped. They still opened some.

I was actually relieved to arrange them today when we decorated for Pascha. They were still in pretty darn good shape. I have pink, purple, white, yellow, and neat variegated orange. I bought eight bunches and some pink roses to refresh a couple of existing arrangements (you see one of them in the background in this pic).

I made arrangements that are pastels in some places and used the orange and yellow ones at my desk.

My desk. Note I have two new icons above it on the first shelf. That is Christ the Pantocrator and The Theotokos "Softener of Evil Hearts" - the latter being among my favorites of the icons of the Theotokos at our parish. I was not aware of the name until I was searching for a Theotokos icon for my desk area. It seemed all the more appropriate.  

I was excited to get things decorated here - as were the kiddos. Lucy and Anthony took the lead and did a great job.

This is our "icon corner" which every Orthodox person/family is supposed to have. Toby recently re-positioned them as we acquired some new ones. I really like it. (Someday, perhaps we can repaint those walls! I was too timid with that shade of yellow. I should have gone for something warmer and more golden. But we were going from white walls to color. As we went from room to room, we got bolder. Always do your largest room last when you have more experience and courage!)

This afternoon after Toby got home and had a bite to eat, we all made our Pascha eggs. The kiddos made eggs like we always have - although this year things tended more toward a neon and tie-dyed look.

Now that we are Russian Orthodox, I make red eggs which is traditional. Last year that was quite the adventure for me. This year was much smoother.

It's now time to nap a bit as this will be an all-nighter. Toby will leave to go live-stream for the parish  about 10 p.m. and the kids and I will watch and participate from home. Orthodox have prayer services before Divine Liturgy and this one starts at 11:20 p.m. Liturgy begins at midnight. At 3:30 a.m., Father is going to bless our Pascha baskets via Zoom. I am so excited about this and I do hope that Toby can get home in time for it! Some of our items are in the refrigerator, so I'll update with a picture of this year's completed basket later. Hopefully, I'll have a moment tomorrow to post pics our Pascha celebrations and Toby's completed birthday cake!

Thanks for reading!