Well, Folks. Here it is: The Top 10 of 2023

Let’s pretend it’s six months ago, and that it makes sense to write a “Best of” post for 2023.

To be clear: it was my intention to publish a blog on New Year’s Day, per my blogging tradition, when 2023 was fresh in everyone’s minds. But that didn’t go as planned, and from January 2nd until now, my life has been flipped ALL the way upside down, so it tracks that I’m posting this on July 10th instead.

What’s funny is that I used to compare publishing a blog to having a baby, and I can now definitively say, it takes less time to gestate and give birth to a baby than it does for me to write a blog.

Some major things to note since last I wrote: I was sick for a majority of the year, and constant nausea is my primary excuse for not writing anything; we moved cross-country, again, and Rob changed careers; we received information about our baby before he was born that caused a lot fear and uncertainty leading up to his birth.

In fact, when I first sat down to write this list on New Year’s Eve, all I could think of were the Top 10 WORST things that happened in 2023, which would not be an inspiring read for anyone. So, now that half a year has gone by, the cloud has lifted, and I can finally recall a few highlights worth writing about.

Therefore, I present you with – for the first time ever, ranked:

The Top 10 Unexpected Happenings of 2023 (that didn’t suck)

10. Hello, Deer

This comes in at number ten because it actually did suck at the time, but in a “this will be funny to someone who isn’t me” kind of way.

My parents had invited Rob and me to join them on their trip to the Grand Tetons, and one day we took a boat across Jenny Lake in order to do a popular hike. We had waited so long in line just to get onto the boat that by the time we made it to the front of the line, I realized I had to pee (yes, it’s another one of those stories). It didn’t seem like the kind of boat that had a bathroom—and it wasn’t—so I figured I would go once we landed.

Unfortunately, it was not that kind of docking station. It was a “welcome to the wilderness! See you in a few hours” ramp, and as I mentioned, there were literal “boatloads” of other tourists surrounding us.

I decided to make the climb, thinking there had to be a private spot somewhere on the trail where I could mosey off and do my business. 

There was not.

Suffice it to say, I made it to the top of the hike and all the way back down, praying I could make it back across the lake, and lo and behold: another HUGE snaking line for the boat crossing. It would take at least an hour to get onto the boat and return to proper bathrooms.

I knew I couldn’t make it.

I noticed that from the dock, the trail ascended to the left, and that’s where we had gone to hike and everyone before us also went. But there was another trail off to the right that no one seemed to be coming from or going, and I reasoned it was my best option for finding a secluded spot.

Off I went, further and further away from the enormous crowd until they were just specks in the distance, and I found a nice clearing in the woods. In I went, rejoicing and relieved – at least until I was half naked and squatting. 

In front of me, not far away, a deer walked into view. Although it was awkward, I figured it wasn’t worth moving because it’s a deer and I am in nature. We have a mutual understanding to leave each other alone, I thought. No big deal.

That is, until I heard twigs breaking and excited voices whispering from the trail behind me. Evidently, a small family of hikers happened to also see the deer and they stopped to admire her. Even better, a second deer joined her. 

I turned my head, half obscured by a tree, and saw all six hikers lifting their cameras and pointing in my direction, no more than ten feet away. Then there was silence.

I couldn’t pee, they would hear it. Neither could I pull up my pants or my bare bottom would be caught on camera. I was stuck between a camera and a hard place, and eventually nature won.

At least in the end I got a photo, too, and mine is probably better.

 

9. Chuffed 

My job as an online review responder took a steep downhill turn when our company introduced AI and required us to use it. 

The AI program was awful, and my coworkers and I despised it. The CEOs insisted it would “speed up our response time,” which they demonstrated by blindly posting AI responses without proofing them, and then bragging about how quickly they could complete the work.

We received more complaints than ever from business owners, and rightly so. Every AI response began with “We’re thrilled to hear that…”; it would misspell the company’s or employee’s name if the person leaving the review had misspelled it; it would refer to owners of the company in the third person and then sign it with their name (e.g., “We’re thrilled to hear that Mark’s quick response to your home fire was appreciated! Mark is a fantastic leader, as you noted, and we are glad you valued his work ethic. – Mark, Owner of Paul Davis Northern Ohio) 

One particular complaint came from a home inspector. We received an email saying that our response “didn’t match his voice.” Note: the owner is not British. It went something like this:

“Josh, thank you for your recommendation! I’m chuffed to bits that my home inspection earned your five-star review. Your kind words are truly heartwarming and I am over the moon that I could be of service. I look forward to working with you again. Cheers!”

CHUFFED TO BITS! 

This became an inside joke thereafter, particularly when we were being reprimanded by our CEOs. We would DM each other with “chuffed to bits” and it would make us feel better.

8. Puzzle Girl!

My mom loves one particular wedding photo more than all the others, so for Christmas, I thought it would be funny (and appreciated) to get that photograph turned into a puzzle.

The puzzle arrived, and as my mom started to complete it, she sent me a text wondering “where is the quote supposed to go?” 

There was no quote. 

The puzzle my parents were given was not our wedding photo. My mom wasn’t motivated to complete the puzzle, especially not knowing what it was supposed to be, but I was!

I spent the next week determined to unravel the mystery, and in the end, it only created a bigger mystery.

Who is Puzzle Girl? (“Brittany,” we called her, though she could be a Kayleigh or a Kara). Who designed this puzzle? Is it a graduation present? Was it in memory of the dog? Was it a gift for her grandmother? Some hypotheses were darker than others. If you know Puzzle Girl, please have her reach out to me!

7. Independence Day

We heard rumors that the town of Addison set off fireworks near our apartment complex, but we hadn’t planned to be there for July 4th (and the previous year, we were in Roswell – the day we had the mover’s scare!). Because I was violently ill for all of June and all of  July (and all of August), I had to cancel our plans to travel to Tennessee for the holiday weekend. Instead, Rob and I stayed home.

As it turns out, it was a spectacular firework display, and we got to watch it from the comfort of our balcony. It was one of our favorite memories of the year.

6. Sherry Retreat, or “Sheretreat”

Our first, and perhaps only, visitors while we lived in Dallas—apart from my parents—were the Sherrys. They visited during Lent, and we had such wonderful conversations that we decided we must do this again. On many occasions while living in Rhode Island, I used to visit the Sherry’s home in New Jersey, and it would be a retreat full of prayer and writing and fellowship (and ice cream). They said they wanted to provide a place of refreshment for people who were involved in ministry, and we decided on the Fall of 2023 to be the first official retreat, with Rob, me, and another couple as the invited guests.

Little did we know, Rob and I would end up moving back to Rhode Island one month before the September “Sheretreat” (unofficial title, coined by Rob), and after a whirlwind of major life changing events, a place of prayer and refreshment and fellowship was certainly needed.

What stood out most about this trip, beyond the apple cider donuts, theological conversations, and ice cream, was the fact that I didn’t get sick. Since the beginning of June, I had not gone more than two days without throwing up, but I miraculously lasted nearly a week, feeling more like myself than I had in months. Although I did get sick upon my return, it was the beginning of the end of my nausea. Two weeks later, I was finally free.*

*to get gestational diabetes

5. DIY Alaskan Excursion 

Rob’s family, my parents, and Rob and I went on an Alaskan cruise the first week of May. Had I not been undergoing what has now come to be known as “The Toe Saga,” I would have gone completely bananas for the outdoor adventures that Alaska has to offer. As it was, I could barely walk.

What we discovered was that during my partial toenail removal two weeks before the trip, my podiatrist had left a giant cotton ball underneath the cuticle of my toe—not conducive to healing, by the way—which Rob accidentally found and removed on the 3rd day of our cruise. It’s shocking how rejuvenated one feels after a foreign object has been removed from an incision! Although we were derailed from hiking that day due to the “no exit” condition of our backwoods excursion, which required knee-high goloches to combat the pre-existing mud—and, given that it rained the entire day, I’m pretty sure we made the right call—I could finally WALK again in close-toed shoes. This was a huge victory.

The next day, the canoeing excursion we’d signed up for at Mendenhall Glacier was canceled because of “weather,” and it turned out to be one of the nicest days we were in Alaska. Rob found a trail on All Trails that suggested nice views of the glacier. For the price of a taxi ride, we got to go on one of the top five hikes I’ve ever done (the East Glacier Loop Trail, fyi). My toe wasn’t exactly good as new, but with a couple of sticks-turned-walking-poles, I was able to complete the hike without incident. We had a blast walking through the mossy forests and around waterfalls, spying the Mendenhall Glacier.

4. The Successful Relocation of Rob’s Plants

If you recall from our first cross-country move, Rob’s plants give me much trepidation when it comes to transporting them across the country. The Christmas Cactus grew into an even bigger pot, and we acquired a new plant while in Dallas. The issue this time, however, was not their sheer volume or the fact that I not-so-secretly thought the plants didn’t needed to come with us. Instead, due to my interminable nausea (which had not yet subsided), the idea of three days in the car sent me straight to the toilet, and I didn’t want to die on the road to Rhode Island. Therefore:

1. we decided not to drive but to ship our car
2. we knew that putting our plants in a sunless, waterless moving pod for 10 days would certainly kill them
3. we’d be delayed in arriving to RI due to a weeklong detour in Wyoming (hence the aforementioned deer), and packing our plants into a suitcase was not really feasible

I suggested giving the plants away, and Rob said he’d rather step into traffic.* I could tell that leaving the plants in Dallas would crush him, but I was stumped for an alternative.

Then, by God’s divine grace, I had a last minute revelation. On the morning that our Prius was being picked up, I thought: why not put the plants in the Prius? They promised a 48-hour delivery of our car—which is 150x faster than our movers from FL to TX, by the way—and my friend Morgan agreed to pick up the Prius since we wouldn’t be in RI for another week. I asked if she could also care for the plants until our arrival, and she said no problem.

BLESS THE HEAVENS!

This goes down in (personal) history as one of my best ideas of all time. And a million thanks to Morgan who saved our sanity and our plants.

*not really, but I gleaned this from his body language.

3. Chanting with Rob for Pascha

I refuse to sing in public. This holds true even for 6-drink Jenny at Karaoke night. I have not been in a choir since 7th grade, and I will absolutely NEVER sing in public loud enough for anyone to hear me. That makes it all the more surprising that I decided to take Rob’s chant class in Dallas.

At first, I was surreptitiously moonlighting via zoom because I wanted to understand the mystical squiggles that constitute Byzantine sheet music. You can read that? I’d asked Rob on multiple occasions. 

In the spring, I started attending in person, but I still refused to chant audibly in class. I also avoided going up to the chant stand during Sunday liturgies, even though Rob required it, because it was far too close to a microphone for my comfort.

However, one Lenten weekday morning, Rob was feeling sick, and I didn’t think any other chanters would be available to ease the burden for him. While I didn’t offer to “sing” per say, I thought I could at least handle the readings and allow his vocal chords a short rest, which I did. And so it was that I began going up to the chant stand.

While I didn’t miraculously become the Celine Dion of chanting, I did intone an Epistle reading on Holy Friday morning, which is as close to as a solo as I will ever do. And getting to chant with my husband during Pascha is one of the best, and most unexpected, surprises of the year (and probably my life).

2. An Unprecedented Outpouring of Love 

Texas is known for doing things big, but what I did not understand was how they love big, too. 

When Rob received news that he would not be ordained, the outpouring of love and support we received was truly unprecedented. Rob and I will be writing thank you letters until the day we die. From farewell parties to petitions to handwritten letters to mementos to humbling acts of generosity, we felt undeserving and at a loss for words. They could have reacted in a myriad of ways when they found out they were leaving—especially after the effort they put into bringing us to Dallas, and how much assistance their priest needed—but they met us with compassion and understanding, and they made Rob’s new master’s program possible. The Holy Trinity community is the definition of Christ’s love in action.

And it wasn’t just Dallas—from Orlando, Utah, New Mexico, and beyond, we would not have survived the last twelve months without the love, support, compassion, and encouragement of our family and friends. This is the shortest entry because it has the most magnitude, and because I don’t know how to write about it. We love you guys. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.

1. Baby Shand

I’ve been dropping major spoilers throughout this piece, so I’m hoping no one is surprised by this, but the best and most unexpected happening of 2023 was finding out I was pregnant. 

Granted, I had to breathe into a paper bag to keep from hyperventilating after confirming this truth, but Rob gave the BIGGEST cheer and took the following photo.

The timing wasn’t ideal, with Rob returning to school, a career change on the horizon, and an impending cross-country move that took us farther away from family, but that is how the cookie crumbles.

While the news of my pregnancy is a little outdated—particularly since I’ve been showering my social media with photos of our baby for the past six months—I will at least share one of my favorite memories: the untold backstory of our child’s name.

A year ago, on July 10th (why yes, my birthday), I had my very first ultrasound. Our babe was barely a head, hand, and leg with a heartbeat. Rob and I were in awe, and I found it surreal that this tiny thing was somehow alive and causing me to puke my guts out. As such, I was convinced—convinced—our baby was a girl, not only because of the old wives’ tale about morning sickness and daughters, but also because of my “motherly intuition.”

That night, Rob had a dream.

Now, Rob is not a dreamer, and even if he were, he doesn’t believe dreams are portals to the spiritual world like I do. But he was so moved by this dream that he left me two messages while driving to work the next morning, asking me to remind him to tell me about the dream.

In it, St. Ephemia [Euphemia] came to him and showed him our baby. It was a boy, and he had hair the color of Rob’s beard (a reddish, brownish). The baby could talk, and she told Rob we were to name him Ephemios. 

Adding to the bizarre nature of this dream, when Rob went into work that day—July 11th—he had to chant at a midweek liturgy commemorating the Fourth Ecumenical Council. I’m sure you all remember church history well enough to know that this council involved a pretty huge miracle performed by, none other than, St. Ephemia.*** It’s one of her two feast days in the church, her martyrdom on September 16th being the other. 

***miracle performed postmortem, because she’s badass like that.

While Rob still remained skeptical, I took the dream very seriously…at least insofar that if we were to have a boy, he would have to be Ephemios.

A month later it was confirmed: we were having a boy.

And (jumping ahead), the day I went from not-yet-having-a-baby to we’re-taking-you-to-labor-and-delivery was a feast day of another St. Ephemia, sealing the deal that our child was meant to be an Ephemios. 

There was a big push by the Greek contingency of our family, however, to not give him a name that no one could pronounce, and it was actually my father-in-law who suggested “Charles” as a first name, to honor The Judge, my dad. We loved the name Charles Ephemios, and so it was.

I know you’re wondering if our baby came out of the womb talking—he did not, at least not more than a baby cry (which was the most beautiful sound). He does have hints of red in his hair, so it’s possible that it will be the color of Rob’s beard. But where Charles is now and the actual story of how he entered the world will have to wait for another day.

I hope your 2023 was full of surprises, and if the negative seemed to outweigh the positive, I hope that this July you’ll find the silver lining in those surprises, too.

Cheers!