Postpartum Exercise

In the past two months my body has taken a smooth start to recovering from birth, and I have been able to tuck away my maternity clothes into their long-empty bins in the basement. It sure feels good to wear non-maternity clothes again! However, it doesn't always feel great when I am barely zipping my pants up or just barely getting a shirt buttoned up. I know this is all normal and this all feels so very "been there done that." But that doesn't mean that I do not need to work hard to make the zipping and buttoning easier. 

My brother is getting married in just two short months (so excited!) in California. I have bought a gorgeous dress for the occasion and even though I am happy with the size of the dress, and it does fit, I could still stand to lose an inch or two of belly to fit into it just perfectly. I also have some gorgeous spring and summer clothing that are calling my name, but don't fit just quite yet.

We have a family YMCA membership and we use it regularly to sign the kids up for swim lessons (we are really into it - we sign them up for each session possible throughout the year - hoping to take a break for the summer, though). The membership does allow for regular gym use for my husband and I, but as a busy, nursing mama with a priest husband whose schedule is pretty unpredictable, going to the gym feels more like a dream than a reality. So I have tried to figure out the best way to work out from home. This was honestly never really effective for me in the past, but this time - I have hit the jackpot! I came across a mama named Lindsay Brin who has a YouTube channel (and many DVD's) called MomsIntoFitness. She has so many helpful videos! I have recently started doing her 10-minute beginner HIIT video. It literally takes TEN minutes of my day - I think EVERYone can spare 10 minutes a day for exercise. I love that this workout is high intensity, and as you get stronger and better at the workout, you just keep upping your level of intensity (because suddenly you are able to do more repetitions than you could before, in the allotted time). So basically, in the workout, you are on for 40 seconds, and you recover for 20 seconds (walking in place, for example), and repeat, for 10 minutes. The exercises are really easy to catch on to because Lindsay is really good at showing you exactly what to do. 

Each night after the kids are in bed, before I sit down on the couch to relax, I do my 10 minute workout. I feel GREAT afterwards, and especially the next morning!

Here is the workout I am talking about. Check out the rest of her channel, too!

Third Saturday of Great Lent

...And just like that, we are halfway through Great Lent prior to Holy Week. My kids love counting each day of the Lenten journey. As every year, Great Lent is flying by, and as we reach the halfway point, it leaves me in a state of reflection and questioning of myself: Am I trying hard enough to change for the better? Am I reading something spiritual each day? Am I praying more than I do outside of Great Lent? Am I going to Holy Communion often, and if so, am I trying to keep my behavior holy afterwards? Even though it can seem a struggle to keep to all of these little (or rather not-so-little) goals, it is encouraging to know that there is still time to change, still time to try harder...

Today we spent our day in preparation for tomorrow - the Sunday of the Veneration of the Holy Cross. I had high hopes of planning out several activities for today last night. But as usual, motherhood got the best of me and I was exhausted, so I went to sleep with zero plans other than our usual Russian letter of the week to work on. I woke up this morning though, realizing that I have to decorate the cross for church, and at that same moment I realized that that is the perfect activity to do with the kids.

So we began our day with their Russian work (the letter "O"), while I prepared an icon to show them. (Btw, these books put out by the Greeks are incredibly useful!!! I am hoping to expand my collection of them soon).

We had a little discussion about the Sunday of the Holy Cross and talked about the meaning of the cross, and why we venerate it right now especially. This icon served as a great quick visual for our little chat.

We also worked on a few preparations for Pascha. I am working on teaching the kids a poem for Palm Sunday, as well as several Russian Pascha carols. We have one in our repertoire from last year that we are reviewing, and I have chosen two new ones as well. Thanks to YouTube, we can hear the songs and sing along with them. I have high hopes of finding a well-priced used piano for us soon...

This evening as we listened to a live stream of tonight's vigil, we tackled the job of decorating the cross. This is a fairly new job for me because I have only been a priest's wife for short of two years. I have had to do this a few times now though, so I was a little more prepared. I wanted the kids to participate in this project to make the Veneration of the Cross more real to them... and also in hopes that they will someday be able to do this on their own for our parish. I love when children participate in decorating the icons or the Holy Shroud on Holy Friday, and it is something I have memories of doing as a kid, too.

Here is our final result.

Before Thy cross, we bow down and worship O Master, and Thy Holy Resurrection we glorify...

Visitors and more...

Today we said goodbye to round 2 of visitors in the last month. My aunt and grandmother were with us for a week, and before that, my other grandmother was here for two weeks. It is so strange to have a guest-free home again! All of our visitors helped so much in the kitchen that I feel like I have barely done any cooking lately (I am not complaining!!) My freezer is now well-stocked with kotleti for the kids, pelmeni, pirozhki, and borscht, thanks to Yiayia (what we call my mom's mom ever since the kids were really little) and my aunt. Yum!

Yiayia was here when Great Lent began. During that first week, I took advantage of the extra set of hands in the house and made my kulichi. I am SO relieved to have them finished already! They are tucked away in the basement freezer and ready to be decorated on Holy Saturday. Next up will be cheese pascha, but I am holding off on that for a bit still because I am hunting for a new recipe to try.

Last year my husband and I decided to make it a goal to make a family pilgrimage to a monastery a few times each year. Even though we are a clergy family, we do not get to do as many family church trips as I would like, because we often split up and I stay home with the kids while my husband goes to a church that is a longer distance from home. Well, we had a marathon day of visiting monasteries with my aunt and grandmother the other day. We went to three in one day! The first stop was St. Sava monastery in Libertyville, followed by New Gracanica monastery just a few miles away. There, we had a moleben (prayer service) for our entire family, which was so nice. My aunt and I sang the responses together, which was really nice for the both of us (she is my godmother so there is nothing like singing in church to bond us). The last stop was in Kenosha, Wisconsin at the Greek Orthodox Monastery of the Mother of God. This monastery is incredible. It is not only the biggest of the three we visited, but it is also the most strict and most populated (by monastics) of the three. There are blocked off sections which are not open to visitors, and several churches here, too. We did not stay for very long, but we did visit the bookstore, got some Lenten cookies (they are so good!) and stayed for a few minutes of their evening service. Unfortunately, I did not remember to snap a photo at the Greek monastery, but here is a photo of the ever-so-beautiful New Gracanica church.

I have been on a knitting kick since Great Lent started, and am constantly itching to get to my needles. It's not easy to find the time to get to my knitting, especially with four little ones underfoot, but I savor the times I do get to knit a bit, even it is for only 15 minutes. Currently I have a few projects on my needles, and I am frantically trying to get them finished so that I can have a reason to buy new yarn and start something new. Here is a peek at a throw I am working on. It is probably going to be a gift, even though my husband is trying to convince me to keep it for our home. :-)

Great Lent

That time is upon us again: the time of quiet reflection (as quiet as it can be with little ones running around), extra prayer, spiritual reading, fasting and preparation of our soul for the Feast of Feasts. I love this time of Great Lent each year, even though it does always come with extra temptations. I read recently how temptations are like a gift because they help us grow, and I am trying to remember that this year as we walk on this path once again. One week down already!

This year, I am reading a few books during the lenten period. Since I am nursing a very little one, I chose two books to begin with, in hopes that I will speed through them in the first few weeks and choose new ones for the rest of Great Lent. My first choices are Season of Repentance: Lenten Homilies of St. John of Kronstadt, and Elder Anthony of Optina (which is from a series of books).
The third book is more of a resource-type book/cookbook. I have read through it already thanks to my nursing sessions, and even attempted one of the recipes earlier today (lentil tacos - so yummy!)

Next I wanted to give you an update of what the kids and I are up to this Great Lent in terms of a Paschal countdown. For the last few years, we had a basket full of plastic Easter eggs and each day we removed one egg from the basket. Once our basket was empty it was Pascha, and it was time to fill our basket with Paschal goodies. This was a wonderful way to get kids to get a light understanding of Great Lent and Pascha. But this year, I wanted to do something a little bit more to their level. So after searching Pinterest for ideas and also using an idea that another Mama did last yaer, I made our own little version of a Paschal countdown for this year.

Here's what our countdowns look like. They are titled, "The Journey to Pascha".

It is by no means beautiful or a piece of art, but I love that its slight sloppiness on my part, plus the kids' artwork, represents our every day right now. None of our days are perfect or even close to perfect, and that is a constant reminder to me in this countdown.

Here's how it works. I made a "path" and I marked enough x's on it for each day of Great Lent, plus Holy Week (up until Holy Saturday). The point of the x's was to give my kids a guide because they are still young. Now, each morning of Great Lent I give the kids a square that I have cut out, representing a new day of Lent, one day closer to Pascha. They each glue their new "day" on to their path (onto the next 'x'). Above the day, I write the number for what day of Lent we are on. Each Sunday is a yellow square, and I will make Annunciation and Palm Sunday a different color, too once we get there. Throughout our day, I watch for good behavior (standing well during prayers, helping a sibling out, etc) and if I notice some really great behavior, I give that kid a sticker. They put that sticker on their square for the day. I have told them that for every 10 stickers, they can have a bubble bath (this is really exciting to them because usually they have showers and not baths).

So far, this has worked really nicely. Some days we are not home much so the day has no stickers, and other days are just rough with no earned stickers. But overall, I am enjoying the concept of them counting the days to Pascha and trying to gain rewards for good behavior as we all do during Great Lent especially.

Living along...

Well, after taking a little break from the blog, I am back! It has been quite busy over here since the new year rolled in. I'm happy to announce that we had a beautiful, healthy baby boy on January 28th, and he is already almost a month old as we near the start of March. He has been a gem of a baby so far, and the most low-maintenance of them all up until this point.



Our pre-school year has been going extremely well and we recently reached the halfway point in the year. Now we have about 15 weeks to go until it is officially our summer break. I am busy planning our Kindergarten year and I am SO very excited about it! I have been using Cathy Duffy's book, 102 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum to decide on the curriculum we will be using next year. I'll share my choices a bit later on, closer to the fall. Right now, I have a list prepared of what I'd like to use, and in the next few months I am going to slowly buy the resources that we will need for our year. That way, I can spread out the cost (even though none of the options I have chosen are that expensive), but also will give me a head start on planning out our year. I have loved that this year's program, Sonlight, has a very easy-to-use guide and plan for each day that required zero effort for preparation on my part. It makes me a tad nervous to think about not having it easily broken down for me in this way when using my own curriculum choices, but I am up for the challenge of making things my own. I am really excited about Kindergarten, and so is my little guy!


Around the house lately, I have been busy "Kon Mari"-ing our things. If you're not familiar with this method, check out the book it is described in here. This book is not as long as I expected it to be for being one about de-cluttering your entire life, basically, but I have been so pleasantly surprised so far by the simplicity of the method. It is very time-consuming though, especially because the first step in each section of organizing requires discarding what you do not need. The first section that Marie Kondo has you tidy is your clothing. But in my case, it's clothing for all of us (I leave my husband's things alone though). So I began with my own clothing, and this has been a whole 5 days now of cleaning out my closet. I have gotten rid of SO much and I feel so wonderful about it!! I am excited about my "new" wardrobe of favorite pieces that I have always loved, and basics. Next I am going to go through all of the childrens' clothing, mainly the stored clothes that are kept in tubs in the basement. The point is to get rid of everything you do not love. I am a little bit loose on this with the kids' clothes because kids get clothes dirty and all that, so I am not really applying the "love" rule. But I have already collected a garbage bag full of stuff to get rid of from just a few tubs - things that are too stained to keep, too worn to keep, or just not our style.

And that is what we have been up to lately! Now we will be busy preparing for our little guy's baptism in the next few weeks, and preparing for quite a few visits from my family (yay!).

In the next week or so I am planning on preparing a Great Lenten plan for our family, and that will hopefully be my next post.

St. Porphyrios on Spiritual Struggle

A few months ago I began reading a book called Wounded by Love, by St. Porphyrios. I am taking a rather slow time to read it because it is my nightly reading and usually I only get through one little section before my eyes begin to close. It is kind of better this way though, because there is a lot to soak in from each section of this wonderful book. It is a really great nighttime read because the sections are indeed short, and leave you feeling completely enlightened before closing your eyes! 

I wanted to share a part of my reading from last night that completely struck me as something incredible and eye-opening. I have never in my life viewed spiritual struggle in such a way as St. Porphyrios talks about it here. 

God has placed a power in man's soul. But it is up to him how he channels it  - for good or for evil. If we imagine the good as a garden full of flowers, trees and plants and the evil as weeds and thorns and the power as water, then what can happen is as follows: when the water is directed towards the flower-garden, then all the plants grow, blossom and bear fruit; and at the same time, the weeds and thorns, because they are not being watered, wither and die. And the opposite, of course, can also happen. 

It is not necessary, therefore, to concern yourselves with the weeds. Don't occupy yourself with rooting out evil. Christ does not wish us to occupy ourselves with the passions, but with the opposite. Channel the water, that is, all the strength of your soul, to the flowers and you will enjoy their beauty, their fragrance and their freshness. 

You won't become saints by hounding after evil. Ignore evil. Look towards Christ and He will save you. Instead of standing outside the door shooing the evil one away, treat him with disdain. If evil approaches from one direction, then calmly turn in the opposite direction. If evil comes to assault you, turn all your inner strength to good, to Christ. Pray, 'Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.' He knows how and in what way to have mercy on you. And when you have filled yourself with good, don't turn any more towards evil. In this way you become good on your own, with the grace of God. Where can evil then find a foothold? It disappears!

In a later section, he continues on a similar path: 

...in your spiritual life engage in your daily contest simply, easily and without force. The soul is sanctified and purified through the study of the words of the Fathers, through the memorization of the psalms and of portions of Scripture, through the singing of hymns and through the repetition of the Jesus Prayer. 

Devote your efforts, therefore, to these spiritual things and ignore all the other things. We can attain to the worship of God easily and bloodlessly. There are two paths that lead to God: the hard and debilitating path with fierce assaults against evil and the easy path with love. There are many who chose the hard path and 'shed blood in order to receive Spirit' until they attained great virtue. I find that the shorter and safer route is the path with love. This is the path that you, too, should follow. 

That is, you can make a different kind of effort: to study and pray and have as your aim to advance in the love of God and of the Church. Do not fight to expel the darkness from the chamber of your soul. Open a tiny aperture for light to enter, and the darkness will disappear. The same holds for our passions and weaknesses. Do not fight them, but transform them into strengths by showing disdain for evil. Occupy yourself with hymns of praise, with the poetic canons, with the worship of God and with divine eros. All the holy books of our Church...contain holy, loving words addressed to Christ. Read them with joy and love and exaltation. When you devote yourself to this effort with intense desire, your soul will be sanctified in a gentle and mystical way without your even being aware of it...

...By reading these books you will gradually acquire meekness, humility and love, and your soul will be made good. Do not choose negative methods to correct yourselves. There is no need to fear the devil, hell or anything else. These things provoke a negative reaction. I, myself, have some little experience in these matters. The object is not to sit and afflict and constrict yourself in order to improve. The object is to live, to study, to pray and to advance in love - in love for Christ and for the Church...

...Forget about all your weaknesses so that the adverse spirit does not realize what is going on and grab you and pin you down and cause you grief. Make no effort to free yourself from these weaknesses. Make your struggle with calmness and simplicity, without contortion and anxiety. Don't say, 'Now I'll force myself and I'll pray to acquire love and become good.' It is not profitable to afflict yourself to become good. In this way your negative response will be worse. Everything should be done in a natural way, calmly and freely. Nor should you pray, 'O God free me from my anger, my sorrow, etc.' It is not good to pray about or think about the specific passion; something happens in our soul and we become even more enmeshed in the passion. Attack your passion head on, and you'll see how strongly it will entwine you and grip you and you won't be able to do anything.   

Don't struggle directly with temptation, don't pray for it to go away, don't say, 'Take it from me, O God!' Then you are acknowledging the strength of the temptation and it takes hold of you. Because, although you are saying 'Take it from me, O God,' basically you are bringing it to the mind and fomenting it even more. Your desire to be free of the passion will, of course, be there, but it will exist in a hidden and discreet way, without appearing outwardly. Remember what Scripture says: Don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Let all your strength be turned to love for God, worship of God and adhesion to God. In this way your release from evil and from your weaknesses will happen in a mystical manner, without your being aware of it and without exertion. 

New Year!

Happy New Year! (A few days late).

So far, 2016 has been off to quite the busy start for us! I don't think it will get any less busy anytime soon between Christmas, a special girl's 2nd birthday two days later, Theophany, our family's slava, and then, my due date!

This year, I have started out two new traditions/rituals. One is for our family, and one is for myself.

The first one is one I have been trying to remember and do for several years now. Finally, this year I remembered thanks to Facebook. I have created a jar for our family (just a large mason jar with a ribbon on it), which will be used to throw in small pieces of paper that have happy memories and happy thoughts recorded on them throughout the year. If you read the description, it will make a little more sense to you (you jot down anything nice that happens pretty much - surprises, funny moments, accomplishments). I am excited about this! Then, on December 31st this year, my husband and I can open up the jar and see what little things happened throughout the year that we may have forgotten about. I love the idea of this jar, especially the fact that it helps you focus on positives instead of negatives, and I am hoping that we can fill it up to the top (or perhaps overfill it) by December 31st.

The second new thing I have started this year has been a new type of journal.

One of the main issues I struggle with (as I think many moms do) is remembering day-to-day things. It is always easy to remember a major event, but the little things are important, too. Well, it's like one of my friends read my mind because for my birthday, she sent me this journal. I LOVE it! All you need is literally 3 minutes a day, and you answer the same question each year on the same day. (For example, every January 1st for 5 years straight, you answer the same question....etc). You simply fill in which year it is, write your answer, and leave it until the next day. I know we are only a few days into this year, but so far, this has been a lot of fun and very rewarding for me. I love the idea of looking back through my answers 5 years from now once I have completed the entire journal. My favorite thing about it so far is that I do not need to prompt myself on what to write (which is the reason journaling never works out for me - I always have too much to record and not enough time)..the prompt is there ready for me and I have not had any difficulty answering any of the questions yet.