Well...

Here I am. New blog post! And I actually have interesting things to say today.

It's been Christmas - yay! And everyone liked what I got them. Here's the list:

• Mum - olive oil sprayer and crossword book (she'd been wanting both)
• Dad - book on Shackleton's boat journeys
• Bindi - Candle that has three scents, glitter and is YUMMY
• Troy - frog and present that he doesn't have yet...
• Troy's Dad - carving magazines
• Troys Mum - Hogfather DVD
• Bronwyn (T's sister) - salad servers
• Doug (B's partner) - Bundaberg Rum hat
• Caitlin (niece) - noisy toys - a camera and telephone
• Jessica (niece #2) - beanie bears, a cat and a interesting textured bear
• Matthew (T's brother) - Optimus Prime Mr Potato Head (which he loved, YAY - buying a gift like this for a 27 year old is a gamble)

My family swapped gifts last Friday night as they left for my grandmother's on Sunday, and I got what I'd hoped for - the AG doll, Julie (1970s, and adorable), her pyjamas and her Christmas outfit. She seems to get along with the other dolls alright.

We went to Church on Christmas Eve with Jeremy, and I swear that festal Liturgies were designed to confuse catechumens...anyway, it was good even if we did get very, very lost. We got home about 3am, and slept in the next morning, then went up to Troy's parents' house for dinner and the big present swap. Presents are a big thing for them - and everyone goes mad, opening as many as possible as quick as possible. Good fun, lots of chaos and excited noises. I got a cookie recipe book and a bunch of necklaces, and a box and things to decorate it with...and some very cool furniture. See?


A wardrobe/cupboard for my doll stuff... that he made (of course)


And the girls on top - from L->R is Felicity, Amanda-Katherine, and Julie


And this is what it looks like open, with their stuff hanging up.

I am so grateful, this one is SO COOL.

Also, I got this:

Well, the table. This is what passes for an icon corner here... I will get more (and bigger) icons sometime soon but this does for now. The tabletop used to be a massive chunk of tree, but Greg sliced it then cut it in half. Now it's a table! And look what's woodburned into the centre (I have cloth over it until I get glass, so I don't drip wax on it or burn it with candles)



Now I wonder where he got a reference for that...hmmm.... *looks at Troy*

(for the non-Orthodox/non-Greek speakers, this is St Kyriaki, my patron Saint)

So I am very pleased.

As far as stitching goes, I have photos! Here is the current progress on Mystery X (my focus at the moment) I am working on part 5:

First, the whole thing


and the west house (part 5 is done)


and the south one...


and finally the east one:


It's coming together nicely, I think. If I keep working, part 5 will be done soon. I got the email that my fabric for Peaceful Paradise has shipped, too - YAY! I'm going to make myself finish part 5, and then I might work on PP for a while if I get the fabric by the time I'm finished.

2007 meme

Sorry...yes its a meme, and yes it's long. Skip it if you don't care :)

1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
Went to an Orthodox service, became a catechumen, went to a public school, got chronic fatigue, rode in an ambulance, caught an interstate train, went on a trip with Troy on our own.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't think I actually made any. Maybe I'll make some, if I remember!

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Helen from Church, my future SIL

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Um. No, I dont think so?

5. What countries did you visit?
Just Australia

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
My health, a life!

7. What date(s) from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
July 7. My name day, and the day I first finally gave up and went to Church.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Church stuff, I think.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Um... staying healthy.

10. Did you suffer any illness or injury?
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Um. Yes, I got Chronic Fatigue. Why are you looking at me funny?

11. What was the best thing you bought?
I'm not sure. Probably something stitchy :)

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Troy's for actually finishing the year, Jeremy's for putting up with me.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
I really can't think of anyone. Is that weird?

14. Where did most of your money go?
Stitching. By far.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Church. Scarily so. And re-starting school.

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
Um. This is where that my memory being a sieve thing is annoying, isnt it? Probably something Church-y again

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? happier I think
ii. thinner or fatter? the same, I got much thinner for a while
iii. richer or poorer? poorer, less money stashed in the bank

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Hanging out with friends, praying

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Wasting time on the net, moping

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Church and with Troy's folks.

22. Did you fall in love in 2007?
Stayed in love

23. How many one-night stands?
None

24. What was your favourite TV program?
I really don't watch much. I like numb3rs, house, and aus idol though

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No

26. What was the best book you read?
Too many!

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Byzantine chant

28. What did you want and get?
A faith that made me grow

29. What did you want and not get?
Yr 12!

30. What was your favourite film of this year?
Across the Universe, Stardust

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
19. Had dinner with people.

32. What's one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Being able to do more.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
Pyjamas!

34. What kept you sane?
My faith, Troy

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Meh. Really not my thing!

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
The election, I think.

37. Who did you miss?
Fishgate people

38. Who was the best new person you met?
This ones not fair as I met way too many people with Church.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007:
It is a blessing to be able to say "glory to God for all things" and stop moping about life, getting on with things.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
I can't do this. My memory is sieve-like, and all I can remember is liturgy...wonderful as that is, it's hard to sum up the year in it!

Still alive

I've been a bad blogger, I know. I just haven't had much happening in my life.

I sat the entrance exam thing that you can take to get into TAFE (trade college) if you didn't finish high school. I passed! So now just to see if I get a place. I hope so.

Other than that...really the interesting things have just been Church related. Services, Thursday nights (complete with laughter, teasing, and throwing of food), and my own personal catechumen-y journey. Which is good, but hard to blog about, especially for an audience which isn't coming here to primarily hear about the Church stuff...it's a different world. All that's in my other blog.

As far as stitching is concerned I have done about 200 stitches of the next row (11) of A Restful Night, but I've been working on Mystery X instead. Which is growing! I've been working on building up part 5 all the way around, and I now have the North one (was already done), and the west one has all but half the rhodes stitches done, and the east is growing. I'm alternating lengths of thread on rhodes stitches and lengths of thread on cross stitch, and it seems to be working. I haven't been working on the South house, I think I will when I get the cross stitching done on the East house, because the Q-snaps are currently positioned annoyingly for me to try and work on it. I'll fix that. And then on to part 6! (and getting the thing officially halfway done) I'll take a photo when I finish the rhodes stitches on the West house.

I've also been doing a lot of dressmaking prep work. I now have a dress cut out for my sister (a copy of the medieval gown I made my godsister a few months back) with the exception on the sash, which needs cutting and a blouse cut out for me in an adorable cherry on sky blue print. Hopefully it will turn out well. My to-do list in terms of dressmaking is as follows:

• put zip in and hem green dress for sister (been done otherwise for MONTHS)
• hem my green dress
• sew sister's medieval dress
• sew my shirt
• find out from nikki what she wants done with the girls' dresses

And while I have my sewing machine out, I can take over the floor for a while and try to get some more of the quilt-of-doom sewn together - the blocks have been done for THREE YEARS now. ARGH. It's half sewn together, all done in shades of grey with the odd jewel tone. Beautiful. I'm thinking maybe I'd give it to Troy for his bed, or maybe to Jeremy - it'd make the most awesome nameday/birthday gift EVER. I don't need a quilt, and there's no real reason to stash it for marriage. Either way, it needs to be finished. It's about half sewn up, by memory. I need to fix that. I'd also like another crack at the redandwhite quilt, which I have an incredible amount of fabric for. Enough for a queen size bed quilt. Yes, I am mad. Thankyou for noticing! The plan is to make it snowball and ninepatch. I miss quilting, I'm going to do a lot of patchwork while Hannah and I housesit (parents are going to stay with my grandmother, I'll join them after Theophany (Jan 6)) because she won't mind if i take over half the living room floor for a little while.

Mostly though, I'm tired. I am not quite sure if this is a relapse, but it's definitely not fun. It's 10:46pm and I'm lying in bed - not abnormal, except I've been doing it since 7 and wanted to since 4.

It's the feast day of the Forefathers of the Church today, so now more than ever it's appropriate to say:
Through the prayers of our most holy Fathers, may the Lord have mercy upon us and save us, Amen.

The One Book meme

This got started by Ben Myers, the entry is here and I just felt like doing it.

So here we go...

1. One book that changed your life:
The Orthodox Church, Timothy Ware (now Met. Kallistos)

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
Willow Tree and Olive, Irini Saviddes

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:
The philokalia? *grins*

4. One book that made you laugh:
The Magician's Daughter, Justyn Walker

5. One book that made you cry:
Willow Tree and Olive (as above), lots of others

6. One book that you wish had been written:
Why Kyrie should have just given up and joined Orthodoxy when she first thought about it!

7. One book that you wish had never been written:
Oh too many. Lemme think...Eldredge, the Purpose Driven nonsense, an awful lot of Western protestant theology...

8. One book you’re currently reading:
The Orthodox Way, Bishop Kallistos (Ware) (for theology), The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky (for fiction)

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
The Count of Monte Christo, Dumas

10. Now tag five people: Um... anyone that reads this!

A Restful Night, two pages done

I realise that I've been neglecting this blog. I guess it's been more that nothing really of interest has been happening, or that which is interesting is all Church related and most people come here for stitching and life trivia, not theology. And with the Church...theology is in everything. I'll put a link to my Orthodoxy blog in my sidebar, in case someone wants to read it. I don't just write theology, I write life-stuff there too, but most of life-stuff that isn't stitching ties in with the Church!

Here's my darling little fairykins though, and the beginning of a frog, at 15,000 stitches, and two pages done (of six, but two are partial):


She's lovely, and it's so much fun to stitch her. Amazingly, I'm almost done with her altogether! From now on it's mostly frog. Which will be nice, I love the froggy and it will be good to see her watching me, but it's kind of sad too. It's been fun working on her.

I have the dilemma of whether to switch off and work on something else, but I'm still wanting to work on her so I think I will, for the time being. Until I get sick of her and run off to work on Dance of the Graces or something :)

December goals

Hm, goals. I'm starting to hate these things, as life seems to interfere.

Last month:
Stitchy goals:

• Finish North house on Mystery X Nope. Discovered that I needed to put it on a scroll frame. THEN discovered I need to tension the frame on the sides...
  
• Make progress on West house Yes, I think.
  
• Make significant progress on another WIP QS A Restful Night. Yes!
  
• Join back in with Tash on JOB SAL Yes, but I won't count it as a completed goal. I did, but I keep forgetting! I'm horrible at remembering that it's Monday.
  

Life goals:

• Finish Nikki's nieces' dresses No, because she's uncertain about some things and I don't want to make the dresses only for the girls to grow out of them first.
  
• Make damask skirt No...not this one either.
  
• Finish green dresses More or less finished one, but it needs hemming.
  
• Attend church as often as possible Yes yes YES!
  
• Read and note The Orthodox Way Ahahahahahahahahaha. Um. *cough* I started. It's taking me much longer this time around.
  

This month:
Stitchy goals:

• Finish row 10 of A Restful Night, and achieve my HAED half year goal
• Finish row 11 of above
• Sort out tensioning stuff for Mystery X, make progress (and take photos every day I work on it)
• Remember to SAL with Tash

Life goals:

• Read and note TOW to the end of chapter 5
• Attend Church as often as possible
• Get my paws on an icon of St Kyriaki if at all possible
• Work on sorting out my room
• Make a pattern for a skirt like my white&gold one that the rats ate, and make one
• Enjoy Christmas
• Try not to spend too much on gifts, or get caught up in commercialisation
• Remember the *real* meaning of Christmas