Happy New Year!; or: Bishops and Bishops and Bishops, oh my!

Well, they sure weren't kidding when they said that this was the busiest time of the year.

Almost all the Greek Orthodox parishes in the Tampa Bay area had feast days. Let's see...
St. Sophia - Winter Haven, September 16 for vespers;
St. Michael - Tarpon Springs (shrine/chapel), November 7 for vespers, November 8 for Liturgy;
Thanksgiving trips to visit mothers;
JOY Advent sleepover, November 30 and December 1;
Preparing (on Sundays, Mondays, and Thursdays) for Christmas program held on December 16;
St. Barbara - Sarasota (Fr. Peter went to these alone), December 3 for vespers, December 4 for Liturgy;
St. Nicholas - Tarpon Springs, December 5 for vespers, December 6 for Liturgy;
Started to go to doctors (back pain, dentist, regular kinds of things we'd been putting off - this is what I'd asked for for Christmas);
December 23, 24, 25 - 3 Liturgies in a row;
St. Stefanos - St. Petersburg, December 26 for vespers, December 27 for Liturgy;
Christmas parties (don't even remember how many) and New Year's Dinner Dance;
Archbishop Luncheon, January 5;
Theophany - early Liturgy at Holy Trinity, then up to Tarpon for hierarchness, January 6 (pictures here);
St. John the Baptist - Tampa, January 6 for vespers, January 7 for Liturgy.

Meanwhile, I've managed to get four boxes out of the house: a microwave and two boxes of clothing to the Salvation Army, and a box of ugly china to replacements.com which may or may not give me some money to cover the shipping but hopefully won't send anything back. I was pleased to get two outfits at the Salvation Army, one of which I made use of at the Archbishop Luncheon the next day.

Today in Tampa was long, but nice. In the luncheon after Liturgy, Archbishop Demetrios thanked the chanters and then went and singled me out as the singing presvytera. Afterwards he said he'd asked who I was and didn't believe people when they said "a presvytera"; he thought I must be the daughter of a presvytera, I looked so young. Maybe if I get some grease paint for wrinkles, I won't be mistaken for a GOYAN* as often. Yes, I know, if that's the worst I have to complain about ...

*GOYA stands for Greek Orthodox Youth Association, whose members are often referred to as "GOYANs." Thanks to Lissa for letting me know I was using terms she wasn't familiar with. (It all makes more sense in my head, I promise!)

Oh. And those newsletters that go out with the Christmas cards? We finished the newsletters but haven't actually sent them out yet. I am surprised at the amount of things I managed to accomplish, like typing up and submitting the presvyteres meeting notes to our Metropolis president (who's such a darling!), getting those boxes out of the house, clearing up the guest room for Niko (he's really funny: part 1 and part 2) for his visit next weekend to help with the GOYA retreat, and learn more about the squiggles Byzantine notation. I didn't spend as much time on the wiki as I would have liked, but I did manage to put up some brief articles and a picture of some of the bishops I came across over the past weekend.

As His Eminence Demetrios said at the end of his speech this morning (to the best of my and my husband's combined memory), "I didn't mean to say all these things, but with such good listeners, you're almost dangerous."