Birthday!

As of an hour and a half ago, I am twenty years old. COOL! No longer a teenager, yay.

I am tired, again, but as it's 1:28am that's kind of my fault. Today's been...long. And not. Hard to explain. I've been working on my sister's dress, mostly, which involved a trip to spotlight to pick up cording and a pattern for something I can make to wear for my baptism - I have pants, I need a top. I found a gorgeous tunic type thing, which will look lovely I think.

Tonight was the Akathist - the whole, massively long thing. It was wonderful, hard to explain exactly why, especially as so much was in Arabic! I stood (Akathist literally means 'not sitting down') happily next to the chanter's desk, holding on for parts of the service - it's perfect height for me to do this - with my service book and enjoyed it, especially once I got the hang of the arabic for "Most holy Theotokos, save us" * and could chant with everyone else. After four weeks, on the fifth one we finally got good at it...and now it's over for the year. Oh well.

Father for some reason I don't know/understand didn't have his car, so Jeremy said he'd take him home - he lives another half hour at least beyond where I live from the Church. He had a lot of fruit and vegetables to put in the car so asked Jeremy for the keys...and then didn't give them back :) He drove us to his house, and that was fun. We spent the hour-long (at least) trip chanting, mostly - in arabic, english and greek. Bits and pieces from Vespers, Compline, the Akathist, resurrection troparia, Agni Parthene (which is a (long) hymn, not technically part of any service but it's well loved and I've heard it done in multiple languages)... good fun! He gave us each an apple and a banana (mows in arabic - much to my amusement, I expect it to squeak!) and Jeremy and I chattered our way home. It seemed much later than it was, I sat and stitched (mostly border, and some text), and then after reading a bit more of Les Mis (he's digressed into describing a really interesting but really totally irrelevant history of an convent at the moment) I jumped on here. And after posting this, I'll probably go to sleep.

Sally and Karan, thanks so much for your lovely comments :) I'll try to have a new photo soon - it's grown MORE would you believe!

* this doesn't actually refer to salvation in the classic western (ie protestant) view of things. It's more save/help us, and as we don't believe that she's dead but rather alive in heaven with Christ, as are all the Saints and departed faithful it's perfectly reasonable by that logic to assume that she can pray for us - seeing Christ himself, no less, and maybe even help more :) She is the King's mother... anyway, thought I'd add that as it's a common misunderstanding when people hear about such things in our Liturgy!