Last year I bought the first car ever on financing (before that I always had my cash-paid ancient car). The Mitsubishi Galant GTZ is an incredible car… but the interest rate was WAY too high, and that particular car requires premium gasoline. It is possible to use regular occasionally, but it does require high-test gas. In these times that isn’t so good a combination, so it was time for a new car - or at least a different car with a lower interest rate, better mileage, and a 4-cylinder engine that would be happy with regular gas.

And….. I found it! I have the first actual new car in my life and while the payments are higher, the interest rate is considerably lower and I think that in the long term I have a much better car. It isn’t as sporty - and frankly - I found I really do NOT like leather seats. They look great, but are never comfortable.

So bye bye Mitsubishi Galant GTZ, Hello Mitsubishi Lancer ES (hmmm, there seems to be a developing pattern here God willing, I hope this will turn out to have been a good move. The payment is higher than I would like, but I think that over the long term I will actually spend less due to the lower interest. Also, next spring I fully intend on refinancing to get a lower interest rate. We shall see how it develops.

I’ve never had a NEW car before, so right now I am having fun

Here’s Looking At Ya! (isn’t that a cool front end?)

The Mitsubushi Lancer seems to be their competition with the Toyota Corolla, at least it seems to be. It is a good car and I am quite happy with it. Considering that not-small car payment due every month now - it is a GOOD thing that I like the car Very smooth 5-speed and it is geared nicely.

Here is a better look at the car.

I do not know if this photo will help Meg to see the structure of our Tomb any better or not, but it is far better than my earlier one. This was taken on Holy Friday, just prior to the Vespers service. This is a closeup that shows more details of the flowers. I did not take this picture.

Here is a shot that one of our choir members took of the Cross after Vespers and before it was pushed up closer to the Tomb. He was on the floor when taking this shot.

(note: I moved this from a comment in the previous post)

Ms Mutton wrote:

What a beautiful parish you have — it looks very homey. I’m especially impressed by how beautiful it looks with no pews, and with the oriental carpets scattered over the wood floor, something I’ve not seen anywhere else (at the one Russian parish I attended, there were oriental carpets on a marble floor; at Jordanville, the floors are highly polished, but bare, wood).

Our church was built in 1946 as it had outgrown it’s previous building which was an old Protestant church that the immigrant Romanians had been using since 1910. That wooden floor is, well, a little creaky

We refinished those beautiful floors about 3-4 years ago and we TRIED to not put the oriental carpets back on the floor. The problem was that when people started arriving for Matins and Liturgy - in other words those times when people started entering the Nave at the same time you couldn’t even hear the choir. The acoustics are quite good in our small church, so between the creaking of the floor boards, the sound of heels on the wood and so forth - one couldn’t hear the choir! So the carpets went back down. Of course, without the carpets the acoustics were even better… it is kind of a shame that we had to put them back but we did.

I will get a better picture tomorrow - or else scan and post a picture that someone else took of the Tomb from Holy Friday.

As I promised on Meg’s blog (Muttonings) here are a few pictures taken in our church today before I started cleaning up from last night before Agape Vespers this afternoon. The lights had not yet been turned on, so the lighting wasn’t so great. I could have retaken them later, but just didn’t remember to do so. Please click on the images to go to a larger version so you can see more detail.

Before you look further, there are MUCH better photographs on our parish website - which is found here.

This shot was taken from the floor in some odd attempt to be artistic. Hmmm that didn’t seem to work really well, so let’s try this again.

I still don’t think you can really see how beautiful it actually is. If I can I will get a better shot with more light, though it may be the flowers are already fading. They don’t last long, sigh… We really perplexed a few floral supply houses with our search for white flowers! They are rather hard to find this late in the year and we didn’t have as many as we have had in the past.

Here are more pictures

I just like this picture, and you can see some of the beautiful flowers on the Iconstasis.

One last photo - and I like it though there isn’t much light. To me this shot of an empty Nave with no lights turned on seems like it is waiting for us to come and pray. There is also something about being in the Nave alone like this that makes me to remember that it is impossible to truly be alone in church - regardless of the time. I like to remember that we can’t see the spiritual hosts that attend to holy places - and surely more so on Pascha! I will try and remember to get a shot tomorrow, after the priest arrives and the lights are turned on, to see to difference. The light switches are in the altar…

Christ is Risen!

Truly He is Risen!

Christ is Risen from the dead
Trampling down death by death
And upon those in the tombs
Bestowing Life

And to us He has granted Eternal Life
Let us worship His resurrection on the third day!

There is nothing that I can say to express the profound awe and joy of this most Holy of Days than the words from the Tropar that we will sing for the next 40 days - Pascha! May we all celebrate it in the never-ending day of the Kingdom.

Great Lent starts for the Orthodox this year rather late. Forgiveness Sunday is March 10th, and Pascha is April 27th - almost as late as it can be. I have no idea when I will have the time to post again, so I wanted to give a little progress report on one of my current projects.

The name of this design is Night Flight, and it is a rather long piece. I started it several years ago, completed the first couple of sections, and set it aside until now. You can see an image of the completed piece on the designer’s site here. I am not capable of doing such a design exactly as it is charted, so I do wind up “tweaking” some of the stitches. Not in a major way, for example, the two blue sections you see call for a Reverse Scotch stitch. Indeed that is what I am using for those two sections, but perhaps I reverse directions for the beginning row or something like that (which actually reverses the direction of all that follows in that section).

All of the fibers are overdyes, some are more subtle than others. It is an enjoyable piece. What sparked my return to THIS project was that I have, or had, a framed finished project of hers on my living room wall that was moved to my office wall at work. I like it there, but I miss having something like this at home, so it is time to finish it. I will work on other things during Lent, but hope to have it completed sometime this summer.

I know I said that I was leaving this blog for good…. but apparently I was mistaken I won’t be posting often at all, but occasionally I run across something that I would like to post about.

While I have too many embroidery and needlepoint projects right now to even consider getting this one started - I find it quite interesting. This is something called shadow work - and these two images of the front and back show why it is called that:

The image on the left is the back side (Herringbone stitch created by the backstitching on the front), the right image is the front. You can read more about shadow work - and this particular project here:

As time goes on my two jobs take up much more of my time than they once did. This is a GOOD thing, I am far from complaining. I rarely have time for needlework, or reading, or whatever these days - and once again, this is a good thing. There also seems to be less and less that I am willing to “put out there” on the internet.

 I will still read those blogs I enjoy as I can, and even comment on them from time to time. It does, however, seem time to allow night to fall on the Stitching Garden.

 My prayers and best wishes are with everyone who I have met through this blog, and also for those who keep the blogs that I read on a regular basis.

World Press is rather odd, sometimes I know when there are comments waiting, sometimes I do not. This time I didn’t know that the blog had decided that Grace’s comment was spam - but it had not been deleted as of yet. This is good. You can see the post she commented on by going here.

Cold and still and lifeless ill lying
On the bier. So strange to see the boy
Whose jest and winsome dreams once en-joyed
The heart of an old mother, now ill, crying.

The whole town and bridge club, beauty shop, baking crew and ladies’ guild
Were shocked at this injustice: how could God
Be cruel if He were so mighty: isn’t it odd
That goodness gets harder once youth is stilled.

(read the rest here)

I cannot help but to post teasers to things at the Second Terrace blog, while you are there I highly recommend looking around at what else is there.